Misunderstandings: A Japanese Transplant in Italy Strives for Lean Production
描述一家日本移植企业在意大利从福特制向柔性质量导向生产转型的过程，聚焦日意管理者与工人间的误解（信任失败），揭示信任生产对精益控制的关键作用。
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.