Whirlpool Slovakia: Leader in Whirlpool Worldwide Network

Abstract

The fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution, and many other similar events ultimately led to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the opening of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from a planned economy, modeled after the former Soviet Union, to a free market economy. This move provided investment opportunities for MNCs around the world. Around this same time, Whirlpool Corporation, one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of home appliances, made a strategic decision to globalize its production and market. In pursuit of this decision, Whirlpool entered Slovakia in the new CEE market. This paper provides an update on previous case studies which described transition of Whirlpool Slovakia from a sub-standard producer of washing machines in Czechoslovakia and Poland, to where Whirlpool Slovakia is not only one of the leading producers of white appliances in the Whirlpool global value chain, but one of the models of efficiency in the production of top loader washing machines.

Keywords

• CEE
• Emerging Nations
• MNEs
• Quality Transformation
• Case Report