Turning it Around

No country has gone as far, or as fast, in pursuing a policy of economic deregulation as New Zealand. This has placed enormous pressures on firms to "rationalize" their activities (that is, to reorganize, relocate, or exit). This book offers an incisive examination of the responses which firms have made to deregulation in case studies of five industries: meat processing; flour milling; carpet manufacturing; automobile assembly; and petroleum retailing. It analyzes factors such as market and asset structure and firm ownership, which influence the strategies for rationalization that firms employ, and identifies the barriers to change which they encounter. In conclusion, the results of the five case-studies have been integrated, so that the framework may be used by the reader to consider examples of industries other than those presented here.