In order to regain its competitiveness, Japan is restructuring and globalizing its business and economics system, as well as other aspects of society. How it is resolving this is of huge interest to its global trading partners. With contributions from well-known North American and Japanese academics, this book discusses these issues from historical, analytical and empirical perspectives.
After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.
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.
Japanese Business Culture and Practices presents detailed insights and descriptions on the proper ways to conduct business with contemporary Japanese. It focuses on the traditional and nontraditional business-related practices, including the internal mechanisms of promotion and decision-making in Japanese corporations. From advice on how to avoid cultural misunderstandings and how to develop trust with Japanese colleagues, readers will gain insights on how to communicate, negotiate, entertain, and socialize with Japanese as well as the minutiae of correct behavior. Using linguistic examples to facilitate how Japanese themselves view their work environment, authors Isao Takei and Jon P. Alston describe the social etiquette and protocols Japanese expect all foreigners to adopt in order to successfully conduct business. With a glossary of terms and practical real-life experiences, this is an essential guide for anyone who wants to forge deeper business relationships with Japanese.
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.
Following the burst of the “economic bubble” in the 1990s, many Japanese companies were required to reform their management systems. Changes in corporate governance were widely discussed during that decade in studies on “Japanese management.” These discussions have resulted in little progress, however, since Americanization became the dominant discourse concerning governance and the management system. There have been few studies conducted from an academic point of view on the internal aspects of organizations that practice traditional Japanese management theory. This book examines how, and the degree to which, the development of market principles accompanying the advances of globalization has affected the traditional Japanese system. It focuses on four aspects of corporate management: management institutions, strategy, organization, and human resource management. The aggregation of the new management system in Japanese companies is regarded as a distinctive Japanese-style system of management. With emphasis on these four aspects, research was conducted on the basic structure of that system, following changes in the market, technology, and society. Further, specific functions of the basic structure of the Japanese-style management system were studied. Those findings are included here, along with a discussion and analysis of the direction of future changes.
Japanese Business Culture and Practices: A Guide to Twenty-first Century Japanese Business presents valuable insight on the proper ways to conduct business in Japan. It focuses on the principles of Japanese culture that influence business-related behavior, including the ways Japanese executives develop loyalty among workers. Drawing on their practical real-life experiences, authors Jon P. Alston and Isao Takei describe not only how Japanese work, entertain, make decisions, and use language in unique ways, but they also offer practical advice on how to work for and with Japanese. The combination of cultural facts and extensive descriptions of behavior provide an easy-to-understand guide to conducting business in contemporary Japan. Because the Japanese are loyal to those they trust and respect, foreigners will gain respect and facilitate success by knowing and adhering to the minutiae of Japanese social etiquette and business protocols. From advice on how to avoid cultural misunderstandings to the proper techniques for negotiations, Japanese Business Culture and Practices is your guide to forming productive work relationships the -Japanese way.-
This book reappraises the Japanese employment system, characterized by such practices as the periodic recruiting of new graduates, lifetime employment and seniority-based wages, which were praised as sources of high productivity and flexibility for Japanese firms during the period of high economic growth from the middle of the 1950s until the burst of bubbles in the early 1990s. The prolonged stagnation after the bubble burst induced an increasing number of people to criticize the Japanese employment system as a barrier to the structural changes needed to allow the economy to adjust to the new environment, with detractors suggesting that such a system only serves to protect the vested interests of incumbent workers and firms. By investigating what caused the long stagnation of the Japanese economy, this book examines the validity of this currently dominant view about the Japanese employment system. The rigorous theoretical and empirical analyses presented in this book provide readers with deep insights into the nature of the current Japanese labor market and its macroeconomic impacts.
The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management provides a comprehensive overview of management and business processes and practices in Japanese companies. The contributors combine theoretical findings and research results with a practical and contemporary view on how corporations and firms are managed in Japan. The handbook is divided into eight sections covering: historical perspectives on Japanese management; structure and theory of the Japanese firm; the corporate environment in Japan; the Japanese work environment; the Japanese market; manufacturing and logistics; interaction and communication; the future of Japanese management. This book is an essential reference resource for students and scholars working on Japanese companies, the Japanese market-place, Japanese consumers, or management processes in the Japanese firm. The book also provides an interesting and informative read for managers who need to deepen their knowledge on Japanese business processes.
