Rísquez Ramos, MarioRuiz-Gálvez Juzgado, María Eugenia2025-01-222025-01-222024Mario Rísquez Ramos, María Eugenia Ruiz-Gálvez, The transformation of the automotive industry toward electrification and its impact on global value chains: Inter-plant competition, employment, and supply chains, European Research on Management and Business Economics, Volume 30, Issue 1, 2024, 100242, ISSN 2444-8834, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2024.100242.2444-883410.1016/j.iedeen.2024.100242https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/115553This study has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation under the R + D + i project with the reference code PID2020–116040RBI00, ‘Users, Business and Global Value Chain facing the new mobility Ecosystem: Challenges and Action Lines from Multiple PerspectivesAll around the world, the automotive industry is undergoing profound transformations that are affecting the living and labour conditions of thousands of workers throughout the sector. One hegemonic rationale offered to explain (and thereby justify) these changes is the sector’s ongoing process of decarbonisation – its attempt at addressing both climate change and the depletion of oil reserves – and the central element in that process has been the transition to electric vehicles. This article presents the hypothesis that the possible paths to decarbonisation are not one but many, as indicated by the different profitability strategies currently being pursued in the manufacture of electric vehicles. Nevertheless, the goal of decarbonisation has sometimes served as an ideological alibi for the imposition of certain systems of organisation of production over others, especially at plants in semi-peripheral European regions (such as Spain). The success of such technological determinism will ultimately depend on the local culture of collective bargaining and the capacity of workers to resist unsatisfactory conditions.engjournal article2444-8842https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2024.100242https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444883424000020open accessL62L23L24O33Automotive industryDesign for manufactureSupply chainsTechnological changeCiencias Sociales5310.91 Economía Internacional: Área Europea