Documentary Film Screening and Panel Discussion to Take Place at Bard College on April 29

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY — On Tuesday, April 29, a screening and panel discussion of the documentary film Manufacturing Miracles will take place at Bard College. The film, produced in 1987 by California Newsreel, examines the efforts of Mazda Motor Corporation in Hiroshima, Japan, to cope with the first global oil shock recession in the mid 1970s. It details Mazda’s use of innovative labor-management practices and their roots in Japanese culture. The screening is sponsored by Harold Oaklander, professor emeritus of Pace University’s Graduate School of Management, and was organized with the advice and assistance of James Brudvig, vice president of administration at Bard College, and Marshall Guthrie, assistant director of student activities and the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard. Following the screening, there will be an interdisciplinary panel discussion with Oaklander, Brudvig, Robert Culp, assistant professor of history and Asian Studies at Bard, and Andrew Pearlman, visiting assistant professor of economics at Bard. The event, which is free and open to the public, takes place at 7 p.m. in Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. Manufacturing Miracles examines Mazda as a model of the Japanese corporate approach to crisis management, showing the company’s comprehensive training programs, reassignment of employees rather than layoffs, and nurturing of a loyal, flexible and resourceful workforce. Oaklander says the film offers a provocative contrast to the current economic crisis in the United States—where fuel costs are soaring, and the country’s largest automobile company, General Motors, has seen profits plummet, closed numerous plants, and cut thousands of jobs. For more information on the events, contact Harold Oaklander at 845-758-5770 or hoaklander1@frontiernet.net. # # # (4.14.08)

This event was last updated on 04-16-2008

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