Inter-cultural Economic Practices and Institutional Support in Shanghai’s Automobile Supplier Industry

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to investigate how different standards and practices affect the integrative potential of German and Chinese operations in the automobile supplier industry, focusing on the Shanghai region. This study has provided evidence of how the development of production and the organization of value chains by firms from different national contexts can be threatened as a consequence of different specializations, institutions and practices. Interaction in the context of the automobile industry in China was, at least in part, impeded by the agents’ different expectations and their embeddedness in different social, economic and cultural systems. From a relational perspective, it is key to recognize the instrumental role of inter-personal relations and their making in processes of inter-firm interaction within value chains and across the boundaries of specific national production and innovation systems. This study also suggests that territorial connections and trans-territorial flows crucially depend upon the roles of certain individuals that operate as boundary spanners.