The major issue in this chapter has been the management problem of how to
identify and then close a gap in technological practice with rivals. In the example
of the quality gap between western and Japanese producers it was apparent
that the very institutions that the Japanese had introduced as part of their effort
to close their technology gap with the west were implicated in the 1980s in the
reverse quality gap between western and Japanese firms. In the effort to close
the US quality gap there was also a degree of what we might call ‘institutional
innovation’ with the creation of quality bodies and an active consultancy industry
diffusing novel practices between firms. The major object of the remainder
of this chapter is to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between
institutional arrangements and the management of skills and work and this will
be pursued through a discussion of Prais’ empirical work on Anglo-German
matched plants.