ABSTRACT
Mr. Koki Konishi heads the Toyota Institute and explains its purpose: “Before, when everyone was Japanese, we didn’t have to make these things explicit. Now, we have to set the Toyota Way down on paper and teach it.” As you read this chapter and learn about structural variations in companies and various control mechanisms that are put in place to run a multinational firm, think about a couple of issues. Should the home firm’s recipe for success be inculcated in its far-flung operations around the globe? Or should indigenous approaches be used? What modifications might be necessary in those foreign locations, if any? How might home country management deal with issues that arise, including what they might see as a failure to apply key operational and cultural values (the Toyota Way)? At the end, we’ll provide more detail about the Toyota solution to these and related issues-including why individual worker output is posted on bulletin boards in the Georgetown, Kentucky, plant where the Camry is produced and near where Latondra Newton manages.
