Four major challenges facing the [American] automotive industry in the United States are: competing globally, keeping pace with technological innovations, controlling waste products and environmental emissions and build and maintain consumer trust. All of these challenges require you to control your business to maintain agility and flexibility. The agility and flexibility of a company can only be qualified in terms of the decision makers involved in guiding the company's missions, goals and structure. Finally, control is obviously the final part of the POLC formula. (Carpenter, Taylor & Endrogen 2009) Competing globally seems to mean focusing on a company's “competitive and comparative advantages”. In highly competitive markets, such as the American one, the advantage lies in analyzing and managing costs in depth. (Kogut 1985) The global automobile market opens the door to any manufacturer that can meet or exceed the definition of “safe” established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the NHTSA definition of “safe.” (safercar.gov) This increases the differentiation of the core product, of personal transportation, and the nation ends up with SmartCars, Hummers and everything in between. As with many things, structure is key, even when some of the innovation comes from the volatility and instability inherent in this type of industry. (Utterback & Suarez 1991) In order for the automotive industry to truly innovate in the United States of America, supply chains evolved into industrial linkages or, as Dussuage, Garrette, and Mitchell referenced in their 2004 work, “alliances connection". They actually suggest forming strategic alliances with competitors to, in a sense; randomize the outcome of various initiatives between companies. The widest range of...... half of the article......ntverde&Teece.pdfKlepper, S. (2002). New venture capabilities and the evolution of the U.S. auto industry. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(4), 645-666. Retrieved from https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~charlesw/LongStrat2010/papers/class%203/Klepp er2002_ICC.pdfUnited States Environmental Protection Agency (2014) Emissions Standards Reference Guide. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/otaq/standards/California Environmental Protection Agency. (2014) Air Resources Board. Retrieved from http://www.arb.ca.gov/Levy, D. L., & Rothenberg, S. (2002). Heterogeneity and change in environmental strategy: technological and policy responses to climate change in the global automotive industry. Organizations, politics and the natural environment: institutional and strategic perspectives, 173-93. Retrieved from http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/autos02.pdf