Sony Corp. will open a distribution and service center to be located, in the Netherlands, Akio Morito recalls, “I saw an agricultural country and yet it was producing goods of excellent quality.

IN 1953, a young businessman named Akio Morita made his first trip outside Japan to investigate export prospects for his struggling little electronics company. He was dismayed to find that in the sophisticated markets of the U.S. and Europe, the words Made in Japan were a mocking phrase for…