1. IntroductionThe of company is reflection of the company's basic philosophy and values with regard to corporate activities (Sumihara, Mitsui, & Watanabe, 2008). Many companies have way of some form that they use to improve quality, productivity, or other shop floor (in Japanese, gemba) performance metrics. However, it is difficult to instill company's way into foreign sites with heterogeneous languages or cultures. For multinational corporations, it is still important to develop organizational capabilities for businesses in the home country. However, with increasing business being done overseas, it is important for companies to convey the way of the company that has been nurtured over time to overseas sites-even in cases where decades have passed since company has established an overseas entity-so that the company can entrust the management of the overseas site to the local employees.This article discusses how Komatsu Ltd.-a manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, utilities, forest machines, and industrial machinery with long track record of global business development-spread the Komatsu way and the revisions made to the Komatsu way in that process. Herein, we shall examine the spreading and the revision process of the way in overseas expansions-a topic on which there has been little discussion to date.Komatsu began establishing overseas sites more than forty years ago. A large proportion of the company's number of production facilities, sales volume, production volumes, and so forth depends on its overseas business. The company revisited how it formulated the way and the process it employed to instill the way in the overseas sites. This article will examine the formulation of the way and the process of instilling it within companies with high proportion of overseas businesses with long histories.2. Previous StudiesA company's business philosophy and instilling its way into overseas sites with heterogeneous languages and cultures have been long discussed in the field of international business management. Within these discussions, some have argued that for multinational corporations to have control of overseas sites, expatriate employees from headquarters must exert cultural control (Edstrom & Galbraith, 1977). Others have argued for means of strictly controlling results and behavior through formalized rules (Etzioni, 1980) while some have argued for the instillation of values and principles common to the members of an organization by informal means and then guiding these members by actions in accordance with those values and principles (Peters & Waterman, 1982). As to instilling company's way, most discussions have focused on how to get overseas sites to accept way and follow its principles. As overseas sites became increasingly important, management personnel in these sites were no longer sent from headquarters but were often selected from among locally hired employees. In these cases, the development of employees sent from the home country (Takahashi, 2011), the diffusion of kaizen activities (Oki, 2012), and knowledge transfer (Kim, 2013) acquire new importance. At the same time, how overseas sites will involve themselves in the company's way becomes an issue. That said, the relationship between overseas sites and company's way has been little discussed.3. Case13.1. BackgroundKomatsu formed local entity in Belgium in 1967, in the US in 1970, in Singapore in 1971, and in Mexico in 1974. In 1975, Komatsu Brasil completed the D50A, bulldozer that was the company's first construction equipment produced locally. In the 1980s the company went on to establish production facilities in Europe and the US. Furthermore, production facilities were established in the 1990s in newly developing countries such as China, Thailand, and India. The fundamental principle behind this overseas expansion of local production was that a mother plant unifying development and production directs child plant. …
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Apr 8, 2015
Izabela Nielsen + 3
Open Access