MIT Sloan Management Review

GM and Toyota launched their joint auto plant where GM’s work force had been at its worst. Here’s what happened next. And why.

“Highly skilled labor should be reallocated away from the financial industry towards more innovative sectors” of the economy, writes MIT economist Daron Acemoglu in a new essay.

Michael Cusumano, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management who has studied the automotive industry, thinks a bailout is not what the automotive companies need.

Today's Wall Street Journal features an article that highlights a subtle but interesting difference in management style between Toyota Motor Corp. and Detroit's Big Three. Toyota in the U.S. currently finds itself with excess capacity for models such as pickup trucks.Â

Evidence suggests that innovative products boost a company’s long-term financial performance and stock-market value, whereas promotions may negate gains.

Reverse auctions can save money and create better relationships with suppliers. But there also can be a backlash.

All companies wish they could produce exactly what customers want when they want it. The ability to be that precise would not only delight customers but reduce costs. The challenges, however, are formidable, and most companies settle for manufacturing standard products in bulk, guided by long-term forecasts.

Together, suppliers organized to save Toyota from a devastating crisis that threatened to halt operations for weeks.

Will the Japanese business system, based on favorable industrial policies, the keiretsu, and lifetime employment, survive the current recession? While simultaneous competition and cooperation among companies have fostered growth and a system without “losers,” fundamental changes may require an upsurge in risk-taking Japanese entrepreneurs.

During the past decade, Japan’s major source of competitive advantage in the global automotive industry has been its ability to bring new, high-quality products rapidly to market.

Supplier-customer relationships in the United States are changing rapidly. Where once contracts were short-term, arm’s-length relationships, now contracts have increasingly become long term. More and more, suppliers must provide customers with detailed information about their processes, and customers talk of “partnerships” with their suppliers.S