The effects of innovation on manufacturing competitiveness of the leading countries in the automotive industry

The purpose of this research is to identify and explain the dimensions of innovation that have effects on the manufacturing competitiveness in the automotive industry through a systematic literature review. The definition of the leading countries is based on three different rankings: 1) automotive industry, gathered through the figures publicized by the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles (OICA) which are then translated into rankings of the industry; 2) manufacturing competitiveness rankings based on the Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index (GMCI) and 3) global competitiveness and innovation, based on the ranks issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The final list of such leading countries is then used to develop a regional comparison of available scientific literature gathered through a systematic literature review. Analogously, the quality of the papers found is assessed based on the SCIMAGO Journal & Country Rank to determine which papers are to be used to identify the factors of innovation previously mentioned; leading to the creation of a quality assessment per country of affiliation. Finally, the effects of the different dimensions of innovation are identified in the papers that provided the best quality and that belong to such countries to ensure relevancy.