The period of economic decline during the 1990s produced a wave of studies focusing on the failure of Japanese management according to western criteria. Yet Japanese manufacturing firms have continued to hold competitive power in the world market. This book identifies the institutional specificity of Japanese Management and the reasons behind its continued competitiveness. Through an exploration of the strategy and structure of Japanese manufacturing corporations the authors discover the essential features and strength of Japanese management systems, their problems and new trends, and consider how management strategies have been developed for future success. This new, sophisticated analysis of Japanese manufacturing corporations, based on data from over two hundred corporations, will enable the reader to better understand Japanese management systems and their potential to lay a foundation for successful management systems throughout the world.
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.
In the 1990s, Japanese companies experienced a deflationary recession called the “lost ten years”. To survive the recession, they looked for solutions in the kaikaku (innovative reforms) of business management, organizations and technology, whilst struggling to regain their global competitiveness. Successful companies all had one thing in common — they applied a new project management paradigm which this book refers to as Kaikaku Project Management (KPM).This book provides a comprehensive look at the features of KPM, including its emphasis on creativity and teamwork, its broader “open value system” as opposed to a “closed technical system”, its close links with corporate strategy and human resource development, and the support infrastructure needed for advancing KPM. Chapters cover both the theory and practice of KPM, citing cases of information and communications technology (ICT) and pharmaceutical companies, among others. KPM holds special relevance today as global competition is increasingly reducing the lifecycle of organizations. Managers will find in KPM not only a way to survive the shake-up, but also a framework of value creation for the next generation.
This case book on Japanese companies and multinational corporations in Japan presents 12 entirely new cases studies for academics and business professionals alike. The cases in the book deal with market entry, corporate growth and crisis management of Japanese firms or international firms in Japan. It presents new developments, such as technological changes (electronic payment and gaming) in the Japanese business environment and provides an overview on the diversity of business activities in the Japanese economy. Written in a simple and an accessible manner, this book can be used as a textbook for students of International, Asian or Japanese management or by international managers and business professionals to make business decisions.
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.
With the service industry taking up the largest portion of its GDP, Japan has much to share in the area of managing service industry. This book explores and elucidates the unique management styles in non-manufacturing industries or service industries in contemporary Japan, both practically and theoretically through case studies. These specially selected cases are the management of the world No.1 convenience store chain of Seven-Eleven, the sales finance business and auto sales business of Toyota, application of TPS (Toyota Production System) to life insurance company, performance evaluation of local government, BSC (balance scorecard) in local government hospitals, cost and pricing policy of telecommunication company, Japanese-style OC hospitalityOCO in the retail industry, service level agreement (SLA) in IT and shared service companies, and ICT (Information & Communication Technology) applied to BPN (Business Process Network) of service industry.The analyses presented in this book were carefully laid out in regard to the business in general. It will be useful for business practitioners in service industry and beneficial to the scholars, students or general readers interested in this area.
Japanese management is currently considered to be in crisis. This book analyzes the degree to which the Japanese management model is changing, in order to regain its competitiveness. It brings together up-to-date research on this important topic by a number of the best known American, Asian and European scholars of Japanese management. A broad variety of management areas such as strategy, corporate governance, globalization, organization, finance, HRM, production, innovation, organizational learning and retailing is covered.
Diploma Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, TU Bergakademie Freiberg (Chair of Business English, Business Communication and Intercultural Communication), language: English, abstract: The representation of women in management is a globally and frequently discussed phenomenon. Albeit the worldwide number of female managers is continuously increasing, progress is still slow and full of barriers (ILO, 2004). These obstacles are described as an invisible glass ceiling: Negative attitudes and prejudices within organizations prevent women from climbing the career ladder (Wirth, 2001). However, culture seems to be an important factor of influence for female management opportunities. For example, female managers tend to be generally less accepted in Asia than in America or Eastern Europe (ILO, 2004). Among Asian countries, Japan is very special: Although the country is one of the most developed and richest economies in the world, gender equality is extremely low there (UNDP, 2007; Fackler, 2007). Women are often hired for administrative tasks only and not allowed to pursue own careers. Despite growing attempts to strengthen gender equality, Japanese females are still discriminated against and expected to stick to their traditional duties as mothers, wives, and “office flowers” (Faiola, 2007; Ogasawara, 1998). Female under-representation is notably high for management positions and seems to increase with the level of seniority (Wirth, 2001). Consequently, the Japanese glass ceiling is also known as “concrete ceiling” reflecting the enormous level of gender discrimination (Wahlin, 2007; Penketh, 2008). Japan’s rigid and outstanding gender inequality is strongly influenced by the national culture and its major impact on the societal role of women. On the one hand, the Japanese are known for their ability to change but on the other hand, they always try to maintain their special Japanese identity within every aspect of life. Thus, fixed gender roles of men as breadwinners and women as housewives persist even in spite of growing internationalization (Haak & Haak, 2006). Nevertheless, environmental changes like an aging and decreasing population force Japanese companies to accept females as part of the talent pool (Fackler, 2007; Otake, 2008). According to these facts, female managers in Japan turn out to be an exciting field of research: They are needed but also discriminated against at the same time. The objective of this diploma thesis is to examine current trends and to analyze challenges as well as existing opportunities to improve their situation.
