6. Conclusion and Discussion

This final chapter draws conclusion after a summary of main empirical findings. It first summarizes the four empirical cases, pointing out that the four car projects could be traced to the historical economic positioning of their home regions under the communist regime, and the associated local political structure and configuration of developmental ideas in the market reform. The chapter then concludes that the institutional perspective provides convincing explanations of how the Chinese carmakers organized production differently against a larger canvas of transitional economy and globalization. Some limitations of the study are discussed, with particular reference to new trends in the Chinese automobile sector in recent years. At the end, theoretical implications of this book are discussed, especially those related to market transition and globalization.