TY  - UNPD
A1  - Schmid, Stefan
A1  - Roedder, Felix
T1  - Takata
N2  - In less than 30 years, Takata ascended from a local Japanese manufacturer of seat belts
to the world’s second-largest supplier of safety systems within the automotive industry. Rapid
international expansion was a main driver of the firm’s growth. Takata had to develop adequate
strategies to keep up with this development. The result was a broad array of configuration and
coordination strategies, which are at the heart of this case study. To get to the bottom of Takata’s
internationalization approaches, we begin by examining general characteristics of the automotive
safety industry. We then introduce Takata and highlight the specific features of its international
growth. Building on these cornerstones, the case study outlines Takata’s configuration and
coordination strategies, citing examples from its international production and its international R&D
activities. We also show how the company found itself sliding into a product recall crisis on an
unforeseen scale, and we hypothesize how far Takata’s strategies may have expedited its subsequent
downfall.

T3  - ESCP Europe Working Paper - 70 
KW  - Automotive Industry; Configuration; Coordination; Internationalization; Takata 
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://opus.escpeurope.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/docId/61
SP  - I
EP  - 47
PB  - ESCP Europe Wirtschaftshochschule Berlin
CY  - Berlin
ER  -