For centuries states have attempted to increase their national wealth and power by protecting and promoting certain privileged enterprises. Since the 1960s this phenomena has accelerated with the emergence of 'national champions' - firms socially selected and promoted by governments to carry the national flag into the internationally competitive arena. This volume focuses on how European national champions have fared in an increasingly globalized industrial context. After setting the four national policy contexts of France, Germany, Britain, and Italy, it considers four major industrial sectors comparatively: electricity, aerospace, air transport, and telecommunications. It goes on to examine the binational collaboration involved in the Channel Tunnel project. It concludes with an assessment of the increasing impact of the European Union on Europe's national champions as they lose their national identity and monopoly status and become Europeanized, globalized, and hybridized.

It ... as an edited book, is remarkable for its cohesiveness and the quality of its essays. The chapters on the national and European contexts are particularly impressive for the clear and concise overview of the major institutional and policy influences on firms, while the sector studies are especially commendable for their spread as well as for their perceptiveness with regard to business and government responses to internal and external pressures ... the conclusion offers a masterful analysis of the impact of the changes in government and business on the state-firm relationship now and in the future. * Comparative Politics *
The contributions are of a consistently high standard ... Together with Hayward's Introduction and Vincent Wright's insightful Conclusion, the collection presents an excellent stocktaking and analysis of industrial patriotism in the 1990s. * Political Studies *
One of the striking features of the book is the witness it provides to the individuality of the main economies ... this is a fascinating account ... full of useful observations on the recent history of large-scale European enterprise and of the shades and mutations of national enterprise policy. * Times Higher Education Supplement *
Eminently useful little book ... This book's superb update of the travail of industrial policy in Europe makes it an astute addition to the personal and institutional library - for the quality of the answers it offers and the new dilemmas it poses. * West European Politics *
Excellent book ... Industrial Enterprise and European Integration deserves to be most highly recommended. It merits particular applause for its perceptive analysis of ambiguity: of national firms and their multifaceted hybridisation, of nation states and their at times uneasy co-existence with the European Community, of the community itself and its hesitant search for solutions to deep-rooted industrial problems. * Business History *