ABSTRACT
The obsession of executive management now is corporate strategy and competitive strategy. Research indicates that Toyota is driven by its corporate purpose. It indicates that the senior management of Toyota clearly understands and has internalized this corporate purpose. Research also indicates that Toyota's purpose is crafted in its stakeholders power structure and its cultural values and assumptions. Toyota is a remarkable company thus far by any measure of performance and any definition of success. The company has a meaningful, value-laden purpose. The philosophical and emotional components, and the permanency of this purpose is what keeps Toyota successful over decades through high quality decisions that produce superior results. The importance of understanding the role of purpose at Toyota and its influence on its objectives and decisions is significant for the several reasons described in this chapter. The closest elements to the purpose are the Toyota precepts and corporate policy statements.
