As the Obama Administration prepares to reveal a wide-ranging and complex plan to restructure the auto industry in the United States, an international team of academics focused on the global industry has offered a road map for its recovery.

As resources become tighter, managers in the retail service sector are searching for ways to be more efficient and one place they should look is their hiring practices. University of South Carolina study provides hard evidence that hiring better people contributes to better store effectiveness in terms of store sales figures.

The media landscape is constantly evolving and increasing in complexity: fragmentation of traditional media and growing influence of new media means that car manufacturers are paying more attention to non-traditional contact points such as events or dealerships in order to communicate effectively.

Despite clear demands for better service, customers report almost no improvement in the last decade. Why? Companies too often ignore the dynamic people issues that truly affect customers' experience. Almost half the customers who defect leave because of issues with customer service.

In many national economies the automotive business plays a major role. In Germany for instance 10% of the working population is in some way connected to the automotive industry. In automotive retailing the impressive turnover of automotive dealerships makes them one of the most important players in local economic areas.

Dealers are assumed to contribute positively to brand retention. We argue that the type of brand moderates the effect of dealer performance on brand retention. Moreover, dealer retention is determined by different drivers for dealers selling different types of brands.

Most consumer satisfaction / dissatisfaction research is focussed either on identifying product classes and personal / usage characteristics associated with dissatisfaction, or is focussed on modelling the psychological processes underlying the phenomenon.

This paper follows on from the mapping exercise covered in the first article. The authors consider four possible scenarios for the future development of the European car industry.

At General Motors, the goal is to give each automotive line a distinctive brand character. In this interview, Anne Asensio discusses how she and her design colleagues contribute to this effort.