ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief overview of Toyota Motor Corporation and the general environment in which it operates. It begins with the importance of Toyota in the automotive industry and in the Japanese society. This brings into perspective the ramifications of Toyota's decisions on the global and especially the Japanese economy. Next, the chapter presents Toyota's historical background and key decisions. It summarizes Toyota's performances in the production and quality areas and shows Toyota's financial result, which exhibits the outcome of these decisions. The chapter discusses the changes in the key contextual environments in which Toyota operates. Despite the economic meltdown in southeast Asia in the late nineties, Japanese executives are realizing that success in the next century depends upon how well they learn to tap the emerging markets in Asia, the world's fastest growing regional economies. The rapidly changing political climate has serious ramifications on the operations of Japanese corporations doing business in the US.
