Management Practices In Japan

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2,0, University of Tampere, course: Advanced Studies for Doing Business in Asia, language: English, abstract: Japan is known for its successful companies. One might only think about the automobile manufacturer Toyota. To perform successful, a company has to maximise profit. In contrast to Western companies, in Japanese companies, profit is maximised by increasing sales and maximising volume by increasing productivity and efficiency. The question that arises is how could the Japanese increase productivity that much? One possible answer is the Japanese management approach. For some time now, the characteristics of Japanese management style have been a popular issue, mainly in Europe and in the United States. Have the qualities and values of society and of individual been a reason for Japanese success? Such issues as the business group, the seniority wage system, the lifetime employment system and the periodic recruitment of new graduates have been examined in diverse ways. A look at the actual operations of Japanese enterprises in Europe and the United States indicates that, there are changes going on concerning Japanese management practices. Japan is an island with almost total ethnic homogeneity, having been unaffected by Western influences for long time. Modern management practices are said to be rooted in the cultural and geographical traditions of the country. Emphasis in recent analysis has been put on how the Japanese management style has arisen and evolved historically, rather than on its typological characteristics. This paper makes the attempt to examine Japanese management characteristics with regard to historical influences, Japanese culture, Japanese social system as well as possible future needs. Cultural and historical heritage will be presented first followed by a summary of Japanese values on which society is based. After that, management practices with regard to traditional and modern approaches are presented. Meanwhile, changes in management practices are examined.

This book outlines the particulars of Japanese management and how modern Japanese management employs many practices which are very successful and worth adopting. The main objective of this book is to illustrate the many teachings that Japanese management practice can offer the rest of the world. The book thus targets managers who deal with Japanese business partners, or work in Japan, students of Japanese Studies, Asian Studies or International Business.

The practice and perceptions of Japanese management are undergoing fundamental change. This book sets out to identify the essential currents of change and explain how and why these impinge on the experience of managers in Japan.

Engineered in Japan presents a unique and comprehensive examination of technology management in the most successful Japanese companies: unique in that all chapters go beyond superficial descriptions of stylized practices to look in depth at particular issues, often contradicting or qualifying the conventional wisdom; comprehensive in that it covers the entire technology life cycle from basic R&D, to development engineering, to manufacturing processes, to learning from the Japanese. Each chapter is based on original research by noted scholars in the field, and identifies technology management practices that have become a major source of competitive advantage for highly successful Japanese companies. Engineered in Japan documents the best practices from such companies as Toyota, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Nippondenso, and discusses how these technology management practices can be usefully adopted in other cultural contexts. Going beyond past observations, the authors all delve below the surface of Japanese management approaches. They look more closely than has been done before at how particular methods are applied, and they identify some new practices that have not yet been highlighted in books on Japanese methods. Presenting recent data that contradict some conventional thinking about U.S.-Japanese differences, they look at old techniques from a new perspective. "U.S. managers can perhaps learn more from the process of creation in Japan and the organizational structures that support innovation," say the editors in their introduction, "than from the particular approaches, tools, and technologies created." A running theme throughout the book is that Japanese managers and engineers tend to think in terms of systems, focusing not just on the parts but on the connections between them. Engineered in Japan is must reading for technology managers and engineers, along with anyone interested in Japanese business, engineering, and management.

Japan’s rapid rise to economic super-power status has led to a worldwide interest in and attempts to emulate Japanese management practices. This book, based on extensive original research, considers both the opportunities and problems of the transfer of Japanese management practices to other areas in East Asia. It remains one of the few books of its kind, as other books on Japanese management have concentrated on its transferability to the West. Because many Japanese subsidiaries have been established longer in East Asia than elsewhere and the local work forces have become accustomed to Japanese management practices when transferred elsewhere have become apparent in a way they have not where Japanese management practices are much newer.

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, , language: English, abstract: Japanese Management Techniques Alzadjali, B. (2009) 2 - 10 There is no doubt that every person from all walks of life is indeed using a Japanese product or technology in his daily life, whether it is cars, pens or paper. Indeed, Japan provided the world with many successful global companies and brands such as Sony, Fujitsu, HP and Toyota. These global Japanese brands did not only affect Japanese economy, it also affected the world economy and trade. These industrial revolutions put Japan on one of the six big industrial countries alongside the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. It is not the manufacturing elements that made Japan reach that, but there is also a great management system. The success of their approaches was not by adopting a fixed accounting system or by Activity-based costing ABC, but by using systematic flexible systems (Patel and Russell 1994, pp.64-65). In the last 50 years, Japan brought to the world a successful management style starting with a government model in the early 1950s, to a corporate model in the 1980s (Porter et al. 2002; Whitehill 1991). The root of the modern Japanese management goes back to post Second World War, when Japan started its economic recovery. Japan started a phenomenal revolution management system (Porter et al. 2002; Whitehill 1991). Towards the 1970s, research showed that the United States and some European countries used a similar system (Hayashi 2002). In 1980s the time came to challenge just how these systems would work out under the Japanese corporate management systems. Professor William Ouchi's book, about the Japanese management system entitled Theory Z: how American business can meet the Japanese challenge (England 1983; Hayashi 2002). The book became a standard management system practice in the United States for more than 20 years. During the last century, there were many theories which appeared on the table based on Japanese model from theory X to Z. However, the American companies did not found any productivity value on this model system and the theory Z management application became unlikely used among American companies and businessmen (England 1983; Whitehill 1991; Jeremiah J, 1992) perhaps because of differences in the environment or the culture. However, the Japanese culture has played an important role in the Japanese management system. In fact, the Japanese firm management system was based on two functions; columns economy and culture.

Human resource management systems differ across corporations around the world. Japan has unique characteristics that create specific challenges for HRM and there is currently a lack of research focusing on Japanese HR issues available to westerners. This book examines the major challenges and dilemmas in human resource management as Japan's industrial society continues its resurgence in the global arena. The first part of the book deals with Japanese HRM from an international perspective, analysing the overall structure of Japanese HRM systems and comparing these with current international systems. The second part of this book looks at Japanese HRM from a domestic perspective and as such covers the micro issues of HRM practice in Japan. Written by a leading team of HRM experts from Japan, the UK, France, Australia and Canada, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in HRM in Japan, and international HRM more generally.