Misunderstandings: A Japanese Transplant in Italy Strives for Lean Production

Abstract

In this paper I describe the experience of a Japanese transplant in Italy: the crisis of its Fordist regime, and the process of its transition to a flexible, quality-oriented production model. I suggest that this study be read as a story about the disruption and subsequent reproduction of trust and argue that an ongoing, firm-specific process of trust production constitutes one of the fundamental prerequisites to the successful control of tightly aligned, cooperative systems. By adopting a cross-cultural perspective and focusing upon misunderstandings (trust failures) which developed between the Japanese managers and the Italian workforce, I show how this fundamental process can prove to be particularly problematic in bicultural work settings such as those provided by Japanese transplants, and how, within new systemic constraints, an emerging pattern of symmetric expectations is constituting an important characterizing factor in the transplant's transition towards its own, local version of Lean Production.