Developing Local Talent in International Subsidiaries: The Importance of
Trust and Respect in Toyota
Cassandra Rhymes
BUS439: International Human Resource Management
Professor Lori Wieters
April 11, 2011
Developing Local Talent in International Subsidiaries: The Importance of Trust and Respect in Toyota
This paper will review an article by Phallapa Petison and Lalit M. Johri reviewing the cultural issues on a new subsidiary in Thailand. The title of the article is "Developing Local Talent in International Subsidiaries: The Importance of Trust and Respect in Toyota" (May, 2007). The main ideas behind this article outline the issues of trust between the new employees of the Thailand Toyota subsidiary and the expatriate management group reassigned from Japan to Thailand. The article further describes how companies can cope with the development of employees through training and partnering with the expatriate managers as a benefit for newly promoted employees.
The article outlines issues that need to be addressed by team members stationed in Thailand.
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Toyota Soluna -- Chiangmai, ThailandSpecifically, the article addresses the lack of trust encountered between the host country employees and the Japanese advisors. Toyota learned to adapt the training methods and rotation schedules through the plant as new managers are promoted in order to address the concerns and issues presented by the local workforce. Additionally, Toyota was required to address the cultural differences between the local workforce philosophies and the Japanese advisors. Once both teams addressed the issues of management styles and potential erosions of the team culture, the company was able find an approach allowing the company to both demonstrate the respect for the local culture while fostering the trust and respect needed between the management team and the Thai employees. Through the four step process implemented by the company, Toyota can adopt the Thainization process throughout the subsidiaries.
During my review...