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Article: Inculcating culture.(Toyota Motor Corp.)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- January 21, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Economist Newspaper Ltd. 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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The Toyota way
IN AN organisation whose employees are self-motivating and largely self-directing, the compass that steers them in the way the organisation wants them to go is its culture. Toyota has 580 different companies around the world, 51 factories outside Japan, and sells cars in more than 170 countries. What holds these operations together and makes them part of a single entity, says Takis Athanasopoulos, the head of its European operations, is the company's strong corporate culture.
"The Toyota Way", which embodies the Japanese carmaker's culture, has five distinct elements:
*Kaizen, the well-known Japanese process of continuous ...