CONDITIONS OF INTER-FIRM CO-OPERATION IN A VIRTUAL ENTERPRISE CONCEPT: THE CASE OF AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR IN PORTUGAL

António Moniz and Ilona Kovács

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: One can assist to significant changes in the organisation of manufacturing systems during the last years. Lean production, network enterprise or the virtual enterprises are reference concepts of the re-organisation of manufacturing systems. Some authors mention a new enterprise paradigm, of generalisation of intelligent manufacture, organised in networks and assisted by information and communication technologies. The first part of the paper develops a critical approach to the illusion connected to these concepts, calling the attention to the diversity of the type of relationships among firms. If virtual enterprises (VE) are networks of firms with intensive usage of ICT, one can verify a predominance of a technicist perspective. This one considers that the development of VEs is a technological problem, of development and management of information systems, and of entrepreneurial share of different databases. Sociology can be useful, even fundamental in an anthropocentric approach. The last part of the paper is on the Portuguese situation in the automobile sector, approaching the types of entrepreneurial organisation.

Keywords: networks; manufacturing systems; virtual enterprises; automobile sector; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 L23 L62 M14 O14 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-06, Revised 2000-06
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Proceedings Rencontre International GERPISA 8 (2000): pp. 1-8

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