General Motors Saturn in Japan

The economically depressed situation of the major American automobile manufacturers in the mid-1980s owed much to the strength of competition from Japanese automobile manufacturers. By 1985 American auto manufacturing plants had an antique quality about them, being plagued by assembly line labor disputes and compared unfavorably to the robotics-driven assembly lines of Japanese automobile makers. By 1985, foreign auto-makers controlled approximately 30 per cent of the American car market, and consumer confidence in the quality of American automobiles was low (Jones, 1985; Flint, 1985). It was at about that time that General Motors was developing its response: the Saturn car, designed to be manufactured by an "integrated" rather than "assembly-line" method, i.e., the Japanese rather than traditional American method (Smith, 1985).

Designed specifically as a small car, Saturn had success with American consumers and auto-industry organizations when it was introduced in 1989. Beginning in 1992 and continuing for five years afterward, the industry evaluation organization J.D. Power & Associates named Saturn number one in overall satisfac

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ery promising" for the company's future outlook (Adler, 1997). Controversy surrounded the entry of many American business interests into the Japanese market in the last quarter of the 20th century. The successful competition by Japanese auto manufacturers in the US fueled US concern about a foreign-trade imbalance strongly weighted toward a Japanese surplus through the 1980s and 1990s and beyond. This has been analyzed as a feature of Japan's postwar industrial policy, which was consistent with a long tradition of hierarchical, elitist, and nationalist-tinged bureaucratic and industrial forms. Similarly, Williams says that the "Japanese model is no calm surrender to the arbitrary outcomes generated by [democratic] market forces. It is about making things happen: setting national goals and achieving them" (Williams, 1994, p. 158). The relevance of such analysis to this research is that it helps explain what can be interpreted as brand loyalty by Japanese consumers to their country's nameplates, irrespective of a product's performance or prestige in the American market. A survey of Japanese commentary on American products reinforces the analysis. Nobuyoshi Yoshida, President of the Tokyo-based Automotive Business Practice Institut
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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