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KEYS.. Japan. Manag. Jungle 1984 PDF
KEYS.. Japan. Manag. Jungle 1984 PDF
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A common theme in the literature on the effectiveness of Japanese management is their development and utilization of "quality control circles" or
just "quality circles," as they are now commonly
called (Cole, 1980; Rehder, 1981; Takeuchi, 1981;
Yager, 1980). Although there are many variations
of quality circles in practice, nearly all are structured as a relatively small group of employees who
meet together to discuss and develop solutions for
work problems relating to quality, productivity, or
cost.
In many respects, quality circles are rooted in the
work of the humanistic behavioral scientists such as
Chris Argyris, Douglas McGregor, and Rensis
Likert, who have long emphasized the significance
of employee participation to effective management.
Schooled in these behavioral techniques, the Japanese borrowed and adapted them to their organizations. However, it appears that the Japanese found
their organizations more receptive to this form of
participation than have American managers. Cole
(1980) argues that Japanese managers have more
fully accepted the fundamental premise of participative managementthat employees are capable of
contributing and desire to contribute to organizational requirements of a supportive supervisory climate and that the commitment of sufficient time for
the participative process may be better satisfied in
Japanese industry than in the United States.
Thus, the quality circle theory ascribes the effectiveness of Japanese management to an in-depth application of the participation concept, which apparently has resulted in improved productivity through
higher levels of motivation, greater sharing of decision making, stronger employee commitment, and
increased job satisfaction. In an extensive review of
quality circles, Munchus (1983) concluded that
they have been successful in widely diversified cultures, but that the results of their use in the United
States are still open to question. Matsushita Electric, for example, uses them widely in Japan but
does not consider the American worker suited to
such activity.
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and superiors). The authors' chief research instrument included interviews and observations of the
styles of chief executive officers in the United States
and Japanin particular, the Matsushita Corporation and ITT.
Pascale and Athos maintain that U.S. management is very similar to Japan on all the hard S's of
strategy, structure, and system, but that Japan has
advantages in the soft S's of staff, skills, and style.
These advantages stem largely from the Japanese
culture, which differs in its approach to ambiguity,
uncertainty, imperfection, and interdependence.
The authors discuss at length how the Japanese
manager in communicating with others has learned
to make the most of ambiguity, indirection, subtle
cues, trust, interdependence, uncertainty, implicit
messages, and management of process, as opposed
to the U.S. managerial norm of striving for complete openness, explicitness, and directness in order
to minimize ambiguity and uncertainty. Unfortunately, the authors support their theory only with
broad generalizations drawn from comparisons of
the chief executive officer of Matsushita Corporation and ITT's Geneen.
Organizational
William Ouchi (1981) summarizes his work in
what has become the best selling book on Japanese
management. Theory Z. Instead of emphasizing the
differences in the styles of leaders of key organizations in the United States and Japan, Ouchi focused
in his writing on the organizations, themselves. He
first describes the ideal Japanese organizational
model, which he used as a "foil" against which to
compare and understand the American model. The
Japanese organization is characterized by lifetime
employment, slow evaluation and promotion, nonspecialized career paths, implicit control mechanisms, collective decision making, collective responsibility, and holistic concern for employees. In sharp
contrast, features of American organizations include short term employment, rapid evaluation and
promotion, specialized career paths, explicit control
mechanisms, individual decision making, individual
responsibility, and segmented concern for workers.
Ouchi also argues that the characteristics of Japanese management have derived from their culture
a culture woven interdependently because of collective rice farming and crowded conditions causing
Japan to be very ripe for industrialization. In con346
activities.
In contrast to the above model. Cole (1971) cautions that Western knowledge of the blue-collar
worker in Japan is still shallow and laden with stereotypes of limited validity. He claims that the vision of the Japanese worker as always polite and
unemotional differs sharply from the gregarious,
spontaneous, openly expressive workers in the Tokyo plant he observed. The character of the Japanese worker is further explicated by Tsurumi
(1981), who maintains that politeness, hard work,
orientation toward group activity, and loyalty to
management are no more inborn traits of the Japanese than of Canadians and Americans. Although a
popular view of Japanese work groups touts their
strong cohesiveness and the benefits of consensus
decision making. Cole warns that this emphasis
masks the strong competition within Japanese society. Such competition reveals itself in efforts to cultivate favor with superiors through flattery or politicking, which can result in conflicts within the
work group. Further, Cole questions the authenticity of Japanese employee security through lifetime
employment, noting that there are many devices
employers can use to get employees to quit that fall
short of actually firing them.
Human Resource
Hatvany and Pucik (1981) have conceptualized a
model of Japanese management that focuses on the
maximization of human resource development. Emphasizing the use of an integrated system of management, the authors' model rests on the implementation of three interrelated strategies: development
of an internal labor market, articulation of a company philosophy stressing cooperation and teamwork, and utilization of a well-defined socialization
process for hiring and integrating new employees
into the company.
The unique element of Japanese management
highlighted by Hatvany and Pucik is the internal
labor market, which derives from the lifetime employment syndrome discussed earlier. Japanese
firms hire males after graduation, with the expectation of retaining them for a lifetime. This security
of male employment is assisted by using female and
part time workers in order to adjust the size of the
workforce to current economic conditions, by underpaying workers in the early stages of their careers in favor of compensation in later years, and by
slow career path movement. The Japanese utilize
an intensive socialization process designed to foster
a "company man" identity.
Many specific techniques are utilized by the Japanese to promote and reinforce their management
system. Broad knowledge of company operations is
fostered by job rotation, slow promotion, and the
lifetime employment. Company policies and assignments tend to build group cohesiveness and teamwork and emphasize the importance of the collective interests of the group, rather than the
individual's own interests. Employee evaluation encompasses both performance factors and workers'
attitudes and behaviors. Open communications are
fostered by extensive face-to-face communications
(the absence of private offices, even for high ranking managers) and by the frequency with which
foremen and senior plant managers tend to visit
workers on the plant floor. Use of consultative decision making practices is another supporting technique of Hatvany and Pucik's model. The final element in their model is management's expression of
concern for employees enhanced by extensive company sponsored cultural, athletic, and recreational
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The need for additional research to resolve inconsistencies and conflicts is clear. True, insights and
understandings are developing, but much of the evidence is andecdotal or is so narrowly based that accurate conclusions must necessarily be tentative.
Although these results are to be expected, given the
youthful state of research on Japanese industrial
sciences, some observers have been unable to resist
drawing broad conclusions that are appealing in
their simplicity but are unwarranted by the research data.
Figure 1
Fundamental Factors Underlying Japanese Management Practices:
A Suggested Pattern of Causality'
Underlying Factors
Management Practices
Commitment to sufficient time to manage
Diligence in implementation of plans
Discipline and order in work
Sufficient time to implement concepts and systems
Development of an integrated organizational philosophy
Growth of implicit control systems
Atticulation of company philosophy
Executive investment in employee training and development
Socialization process in hiring and integration
Reduced turnover and high loyalty
Nonspecialized career paths
Development of internal labor markets
Emphasis on soft S'sstaff, skills, style
Company unions rather than craft unions
Emphasis on teamwork and cooperation
Consensus decision making
Participative management
Trust and interdependence
Quality circles
"Overlapping lines represent shadings of dual causality. The authors acknowledge that some of the resultant practices may, in turn, reinforce the underlying factors, suggesting two-way causality.
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imization, certain benefits are likely to follow. Management is allocated more time to develop objectives and implementation plans. The longer planning horizon is conducive to the generation of
interpersonal relationships that foster mutual understandings and implicit goals. Furthermore, the
time frame of all plansshort run, intermediate,
and long termtends to lengthen, and immediate
pressures tend to diminish. Deliberate planning and
communication exhibits itself in orderliness and diligence of implementation of production operations
and in the integration of manufacturing strategy
and operations policy. There is time to produce customized in-house process equipment, and, perhaps
more importantly, the long tenure of employees provides time to select employees whose skills match
the equipment or to train those whose skills do not.
The impact of the long planning horizon on Japanese industry is further evidenced in the activities
of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which provide a supportive, stable environment for the industries that are responsive to expressed national economic goals. The predictability of public policy
toward business and industry permits an easier organizational commitment to long term strategies
rather than a penchant for short run expediencies.
The success in Japan of quality circles, statistical
quality control, and consensus decision making also
is facilitated by the long term focus. Often the lack
of success with these approaches in the United
States has not been because they are faulty in theory or concept, but rather because they have been
implemented poorly. Poor implementation usually
means too hastily introduced. However, given sufficient time for employers to become comfortable
with these new approaches, and with co-workers,
many implicit control systems and corrective adjustments arise to prevent the failure of these complex managerial concepts and systems.
ceptance 01 cnanges m
ogy that enhance productivity. (This approach
contrasts sharply with an American tendency to
reap short term benefits from new employees with
entry-level skills by retaining them in a job until
they leave the organization.)
The recruitment and selection process is approached differently when one hires for a lifetime
rather than the short term. More emphasis must be
given to the socialization factorsthe "fit" of the
employee to the organization, one's satisfaction
with the company philosophy, one's relationships
with peer groups at work, the acceptance of management style, and so on. Indeed, hiring may be
based more on social factors than on entry skills,
because the latter will be utilized less.
The intensive socialization of the Japanese firm's
efforts to inculcate the culture of the organization
in employeesthrough such extensive ritualistic
practices as employee calisthenics, singing the company song, after-hours group activities, and company sponsored vacationshelp develop and sustain
long term commitment and loyalty to the organization. The holistic concern that is evidenced for employees and their families may be viewed as a sensible effort to safeguard the employer's substantial
investment in human resources and further bond
the employees to the organization.
The long term commitment and concern for employees and the consequent familial relationship
promote trust and support of organizational leadership. Unlike the employee who is likely to remain
with an employer (and a boss) for a short time, the
Japanese system promotes accommodation and
unity of interest. Knowing the extended nature of
the employment practice, the worker is less inclined
to engage in major confrontations or confiicts that
would damage the long term superior-subordinate
relationship. One would expect communications to
be more gentle, subtle, implicit, and "family
oriented."
Finally, a commitment to lifetime employment
with holistic concern for employees is likely to produce a balanced, reciprocal psychological contract
calling for a "company" type of identity. The employer's side of the contract is likely to include
more participation of employees in the decision
making process. When one has remained with a
company long enough "to belong," the person also
is more likely to be "consulted" on important mat-
Perhaps all of the theorists are correct in attributing some Japanese excellence to the area of Japan's industry that they have examined. Maybe the
Japanese, in their obsession to redeem the honor of
their country after World War II and in their quest
for world respect in industry, have produced excellence in many areas of the process of management.
If so, it should not be surprising that existing research efforts have failed to capture adequately the
essence of Japanese management effectiveness. Further, it seems unlikely that additional research
seeking single-factor or dual-factor explanations of
the Japanese success will be more successful; the
panacea will continue to be elusive. Also, the jungle
warfare among managemetit theorists cited by
Koontz in 1961 is not lacking among students of
Japanese management today. For there exists a tendency to discount or discredit rival hypotheses or
conceptualizations that are incompatible with one's
own.
Of what value are the present theories in the jungle? It is argued that they are of considerable value
as long as researchers and organization development implementors recognize that elements of Japanese management do not stand alone, but rather
they require supporting cultural and environmental
frameworks to be effective. As in most new systems
of management, practice must precede research,
and research must initially address small segments
of the implementation. For the organization contemplating adoption of the Japanese system, Chung
and Gray (1982) stress that extensive preparation
and commitment is necessary, pointing out that an
adoption will not work unless the organization is
willing to change its whole philosophy of organizing
concepts in isolation. Present understanding of Japanese management is limited by the narrow comprehension of the environment in which it exists
societal norms and values, educational and socialization processes, and the interfaces of business, government, and labor. Armed with a better understanding of the interrelationships of the elements of
the Japanese management system, one will be better equipped to address the issues of emulation, adaptation, and implementation in American enterprises. When one attempts to traverse a jungle, a
complete understanding of the terrain is helpful.
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