Le potentiel de mobilité de l'activité manufacturière de l'entreprise multinationale. Quelques enseignements tirés de l'étude de Sony Manufacturing UK

Is the multinational enterprise able to transfer without difficulty its manufacturing activity to another region? To examine this question, this paper presents first a theoretical framework which describes the factors influencing the mobility potential of such a manufacturing activity (the kind of territorial resources employed by the multinational enterprise, the durability and specificity of the fixed assets used by the multinational enterprise in the host region, the possession by the multinational enterprise of substitutive plants in other regions,...). This framework is then used to analyse the mobility potential of the two main activities of Sony Manufacturing UK (Sony’s manufacturing subsidiary in Wales): the assembly of television sets and the manufacturing of television tubes (CRTs). The analysis shows us the importance, in the short run, of the "weight" of the capital goods used in production. This limits significantly the mobility of the capital-intensive activity: the manufacturing of television tubes. In the long run, the territorial resources employed by the multinational enterprise are fundamental; they can contribute to the perennity of the activities of this enterprise in the host region. The problem is that Sony Manufacturing UK uses principally generic territorial resources (low-skilled workers, indigenous suppliers of simple material inputs,...) — resources that can be found in many other regions. This makes for an uncertain future of Sony’s activities in Wales.