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Article: The problems and challenges of working in International settings: a special topic issue of the Cornell Quarterly.
- Article from:
- Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly
- Article date:
- May 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Sage Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When Fujio Cho arrived in Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1986 to supervise production at Toyota's first American factory, he soon discovered it was easier to export cars than to transfer Toyota's ideas about how to build them. "There were cultural differences right from the beginning," he recalls. "We'd give somebody a sketch, figuring they'd get the idea. But workers were baffled. They kept asking us, 'Why do it this way?' I was completely unprepared for that. We hadn't been trained to think in terms of logical reasons." (1)
The culture shock that Fujio Cho experienced, as reported in Fortune magazine, has reoccurred many times as corporations expand internationally ...