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In consumer electronics, when the staff of the French consumer electronics company Thomson visited Tokyo in 1970, they completely misinterpreted the impact of the video tape recorder (VTR) revolution in Japan. Subsequently they were only too happy to seize the opportunity to build a relationship with the Japanese company JVC, and initially to sell its VCRs and cassettes under license, in order to catch up with the breakthrough that this company had achieved. In the end, they decided to establish a research lab in Tokyo.In the automobile sector, however, it was a Japanese firm which became a licensee of its French counterpart, Renault, in order to produce the 4 CV. From 1974 onward, the trips to Japan made by executives of the French car makers gave rise to numerous reports that top managers generally underestimated. Nonetheless, the cooperation between Renault and Nissan, which started in 1999, was very successful and it has even been argued that it now makes Nissan more important in the alliance than Renault.This article assesses patterns of cooperation which not only differ according to industries and to periods, but that also seem to suggest a different kind of learning process. In both cases the learning process is based on difficulties, but it will be shown that relations can shift from traditional technology transfer to a deeper connection at a new stage of globalisation and a new phase of of network organisation.