Japan: Myths & Realities

Concept of corporation

It is a assembly of people(sha-in) or member.

Stockholders are considered as wealthy people &

moneylenders

Employees are given more priority than shareholders

Employee first move from lowest to highest level.

Managing directors are not mentioned in Line

organization charts, still these corporations can react to
changing environment much more readily than western
counterparts.

Managers are often switched from various areas so that

 In western countries people are hired according to their job

description and if over achiever who will gradually feel unfit and
may leave the company. In this way western companies cant
staff over qualified managers they staff below quality managers.
In Japan job function is loosely defined(overlap) & in western
countries tightly defined. [Peter principle]
Japanese lifetime employment system
Long range planning and tight control kills creativity. Japan relies
on individual for group contribution & initiatives for improvement
and innovation.
Japanese management approach: Quality circle, suggestion box,
promotion by tenure. An employee is utilized to extent of his
creative & productive capacity.
McNamara syndrome: tremendous emphasis on brain power. Like
B school graduate with pay of retiring blue collar worker.
Education system focuses on harmony & discourages super
performer & in West they focus on individualism.
In West lack of job ethic, frequent job hopping by skilled worker
Japanese Govt promoted steel and gave subsidy and then
promoted vlsi
Govt acted as coach rather than a leader.

 CHANGING THE BATTLE GROUND

Marketing: Japanese avoided going global at
once, they started testing out in few south
asian countries & few US cities. They started
as trading company to dealer-> distributor
to OEM .(Canon, Pentax, Panasonic)
Technology: Breakthrough in VLSI
technology, helped them in various areas
like industrial robots, videotape recorders,
electron microscope etc. They have
specialsied technology in fermentation
(MSG)
The success reciepe: Awarness of resource
limitation, value design and zero based