Toyota falls foul of caste system : Industrial unrest linked to class antipathy

Purpose – The paper aims to analyze the cross-cultural reasons underlying the extreme industrial unrest experienced during the first seven years of Toyota’s operations in India. Design/methodology/approach – It draws on information obtained from 30 personal interviews, field notes, observations and Internet media sources. Findings – It reports how Toyotism shares three common features with Brahminism – renunciation, performance and perfection – and how antipathy toward the manner in which these features were implemented in India caused significant resistance among the production workforce. Practical implications – It suggests that management seeking to implement lean manufacturing in India should concentrate on minimizing the antipathy by production workers. Social implications – It helps to show how employee relations, unrest and antagonism toward lean-manufacturing practices are closely related to cross-cultural issues prevalent in host countries. Originality/value – It considers that the concept of Brahmanism in Indian employee relations is under-researched in comparison with other aspects of Indian culture, and antipathy toward the concept as a source of resistance to the implementation of lean systems needs to be better understood.