Winter 2013 Industry Paper

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Industry Memo
Maximum 800 Words
Due Monday, 18 March 2013 in class

Due to the cancellation of classes last Wednesday due to the power outage, I have pushed the paper deadline back one week.
Note the shorter length. You will run out of word count if you (i) use passive voice, (ii) fail to properly cite or (iii) otherwise do not pare redundant prose to the core. For example, if your title has “China” in it then you need not mention it thereafter. Think hard about whether you’re saying something that is clear from the context. If so, don’t! Similarly, for citations, you should not include the title or any extraneous information in the body of the paper; rely on your bibliography. Indeed, you can use initials for multi-author works: B&L for Branstetter and Lardy, BRS for Brandt, Rawski and Sutton, but Dunne and Naughton for those items. So (BLS, #) is an appropriate in-text citation.

Topic
Discuss the Dunne book in the context of the three assigned chapters in the Brandt and Rawski edited volume. Possible themes include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Does GM-SAIC represent continuity or not in terms of globalization?
  • What stands out in terms of industrialization? – is China now playing on a new stage?
  • What of the old “planned” economy? Where does that make (or not make) an appearance?
  • Have various political economy components also shifted, so that what we read about in Dunne reflects, directly or indirectly, new priorities in Beijing?
  • Or – as per what might be included in a book review – do the B&R chapters suggest Dunne left out important issues, or overstated one or another item because he implicitly (but wrongly) assumed that GM-SAIC is representative of firm-level or generic industry issues?

Note that to stay within the 800 word limit you need to carefully (and succinctly) state your primary theme. You should use at least two of the B&R chapters in your paper, but it may not be easy to include all three.

Please proofread carefully. After two papers, you should realize that I read what you write closely. This time around I will be stricter in grading papers down for inattention – though not (quite) 3 strikes and you’re …

As in the past, please hand in a hard copy, but submit one in the Sakai dropbox as a backup. I have a filecase into which I put everything to try to keep yours from getting lost in the mountain of other printed items in my office. Backups are nevertheless helpful.

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