This is a book of contributed chapters, including detailed case studies, which demonstrates that competition, whether among countries or firms, is driven by advantages that cannot easily be imitated or diffused. Cheap labour can be imitated but is not desirable; capital moves easily across borders; new products are copied within a few years. What is difficult to imitate are the organizing practices of work, as applied to the factory, to the firm, and to the relations among firms and other institutions. The chapters are by an international group of scholars from the US, France, Germany, the UK, and Japan.

Contributors: Giovanni Dosi, Bruce Kogut, Mark Fruin, Toshi Nishiguchi, John Dunning, David Parkinson, Christopher Midler, Florence Charue, Juliet Webster, D. Hugh Whittaker, Ulrich Juergens, Horst Kern, Michael Schumann, Arndt Sorge, Marc Maurice, James R. Lincoln, Eleanor D. Westney, Gary Herrigel