Could some of our Japanese friends explain what is going on with this: The Associated Press: Toyota expert Sato calls for new leadership Public criticism like this of a corporate leader seems somewhat unexpected. We do it all the time in the USA for our business leaders who often deserve it and more. But this seems unusual. Can any of our Japanese friends help us understand what this is all about? For example, I do not remember the previous Toyota CEO getting such public criticism but then we don't always follow business writing of Japan. Thanks, Bob Wilson
i could be wrong, but it seems to me past ceo's swept problems under the rug and he was left to deal with them. sort of like o'bama.
No one on PC is so naive, that we: a) don't know when someone is blaming past U.S. problems on any one president for past failures, because that's overly simplistic b) use another's post, to express views unrelated to the post at hand. :focus: Yes, the past Toyota president stepped down, much like Hitachi's CEO stepped down, when Hitachi sold U.S. submarine stealth secrets to Russia during the tail end of the cold war. Leaving one's position is the noble way to save face for the company, and heaping the blame on the incoming leader is out of cultural character, even for their pres.
Being a U.S. Submariner during the cold war, I remember a subsidiary of Toshiba selling a world class precision NC machine that the Soviets used to make much quieter Soviet submarine propellers. Is that what you were referring to? Extract from legal case: ....On May 27 1987 the Japanese police arrested two senior executives of Toshiba Machine, who had been in charge of designing and exporting machine tools to the Soviet Union, for selling four nine-axis in 1982-1984 and 4 five-axis milling machines in 1984 to the Soviets, in violation of COCOM provisions. The executives admitted the charges. " As you can see the resignations were more for company criminal conduct than bad PR.
Yes, that's the case, and it actually went up & down the courts for years. Since the laws proscribing soviet sales was poorly written, the CEO's 'thought' they could sneak it through vis a vis a 'grey area'.
