Lean Production Systems, Labor Unions, and Greenfield Locations of the Korean New Auto Assembly Plants and Their Suppliers
研究了1990年代韩国汽车装配企业引入精益生产系统并选择绿地选址的原因，发现工会是影响企业采用和选址策略的关键因素，企业为获得灵活劳动力而选择绿地，揭示了工人与管理层的冲突。
Abstract: This article investigates why Korean auto assembly firms introduced “lean production systems” and chose greenfield locations as their new flexible production sites in the 1990s. I show that labor unions are important actors that directly affect firms‘ adoption and location strategies for lean production systems, by means of an analysis of Korean auto firms‘ managerial and locational strategies in response to adversarial labor relations. Korean firms‘ choice of greenfield locations for implementing lean production systems indicates that their desire to procure a malleable labor force is more important than proximity. Korean auto firms‘ decisions to implement Japanese‐style lean production systems and their choice of greenfield locations reflect conflicts between workers and managers. The findings in this article critique the existing literature in economic geography, which is devoid of discussions of workers and labor unions as active geographic agents, from the labor geography point of view.