Section One Workplace Reform: Teams in Australia's Automotive Industry: Characteristics and Future Challenges

Australia's $10 billion automotive industry faces an uncertain future in the global market place of the late 20th Century. A dramatic increase in international trade, accompanied by increasing mobility of capital, technology, and education, has diminished many of the traditional sources of competitive advantage once held by firms in Western industrialised countries (Grayson & O'Dell, 1988; Lawler, 1992). Newly industrialised countries in South East Asia, for instance, are eroding the market share of Australian vehicle manufacturers and components producers. Australia's once heavily protected automotive industry now competes in an increasingly open market. The free trade policies of the Australian government have steadily reduced the tariff on imported vehicles from 57.5% in 1985 to 35% in 1992, and aim to achieve a tariff of 15% by the year 2000 (Automotive Industry Authority, 1995).