A new paradigm of industrial organization : The diffusion of technological and managerial innovations in the Brazilian industry

Abstract: Based on the concepts of techno-economic paradigm, network and production chain, the main purpose of this dissertation is to analyse the diffusion of technological and managerial innovations in the Brazilian industry during the 1980s and the 1990s. It consists of a summary and six selected papers. Empirical studies were conducted at different moments of the re-structuring process and at different points of the production chain. The samples cover large leading firms as well as small second and third-tier suppliers in the automotive and footwear industries. They throw light on the process of diffusion and establishment of a new paradigm of industrial organization, mostly in conflict with the Taylorist/Fordist.Ideas, methods and management techniques were largely adopted and imitated from the so-called "Japanese model", but the diffusion of the new paradigm in Brazil is also the result of adapting and modifying this model by trial and error. At the firm level, the adoption of these innovations entails a highly complex process of social change, reversing norms and models of behaviour hitherto dominant. They modify the daily practices at work, and the division of labour within and between companies, as well as between companies and other institutions, such as those within the educational system. These transformations are studied by distinguishing competition, management, and technological patterns.The results show that, under the conditions of a an extremely large domestic market, the re-structuring of the Brazilian industry occurs in a context characterized by crisis, economic instability, recession and unemployment as well as by political re-democratization and growing influence of the labour movement. The diffusion of the new paradigm of efficiency together with the increasing globalization of the economy and the ongoing abandonment of import substitution, transformed the organization of work and inter-firms relations, changing the volume, structure, and location of employment as well as the content and hierarchy of skills.