hat by 1985 Saturn had become a new GM subsidiary. A new factory was to be built from scratch, and, after many bids for a new site, GM finally chose a site near Spring Hill, Tennessee.
Hardly had work begun on the new factory in early 1986 when some company goals began changing. As new models of low-price imports began coming in from Korea and Yugoslavia, GM executives abandoned the idea of being cost-competitive with these. Now they began targeting the car for the middle of the import pack, where prices were several thousand dollars higher. As a result, the car had grow larger, now positioned between cars like the Chevy Cavalier and the company's midsize cars such as the Oldsmobile Sierra. And sales estimates were downsized.
Already the project had been downsized from $5 billion to $3.5 billion, employing 3,000 rather than 5,000, and building 250,000 cars the first year, not 500,000 as was first announced (Sherman, 1994, p. 5). Despite the ease with which GM had embraced the New Age rhetoric about teamsmanship, partners, and
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