"Globalization is transforming the German manufacturing production model. German manufacturing MNCs are shifting from servicing global demand via exports to a strategy of “produce where you sell” FDI expansion in emerging global markets. This strategy is generating recursive dynamics that are transforming the demographic and role composition of German home country production locations. This, in turn, poses challenges for the German systems of industrial relations and for industrial policy that are only beginning to be addressed. Overall, the article's take home conceptual message is that contemporary manufacturing globalization processes are recursive: i.e.: actions taken outside of Germany, on all levels, have consequences for—and involve change in—organizations and practices within Germany.Much of the material in this paper draws on a series of research projects conducted by the author, often in collaboration with Volker Wittke and Ulrich Voskamp of the SOFI Institute in Goettingen, Germany. Over 150 interviews were conducted in Germany, Central Europe and China between 2008 and 2013 in the automobile, auto components, electromechanical and machinery industries. I thank the Alfred P Sloan Foundation and the Confucius Institute at the University of Chicago and we thank the Hans Boekler Stiftung for financial support. This article is dedicated to the memory of Volker Wittke, indispensible colleague and friend."

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