Japanese Management Essay

In the early 1980s, William Ouchi asserted in the U.S. soil the signifi piece of assce of system Z (1981), a Nipponese cargon style that includes communal kin in brasss and strong trust bonds as a to a greater extent effective way to insure business as evidenced by the conquest of japanese corporations. This has made the interest and appreciation for the lacquerese style of solicitude and practices grow for the last twenty years, especially those productive Nipponese companies who employ unusual approaches (Lee and McCalman, 2008).For Nipponese firms, the development of good alliance is a primeval interest. A Japanese firm whitethorn refuse to deal with some some separate and ink a partnership regardless of the possible profits it whitethorn gain from the venture. The drive to develop a good kindred is originally due to the very eventful principle called tsuikiai (socialization) (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Peer-to-peer race is more requirement than relationship amongst levels as the Japanese entrust that an brass instrument draws might from the former rather than from the latter. Hence, for Ameri ground rifle managers, it is only normal to assess their subordinates base on certain criteria. On the contrary, Japanese organizations tend to assess their employees establish on their ability to work with their colleagues (Byham, 1993). Japanese managers get good evaluations if their subordinates can work well with each other. As overmuch(prenominal), Japanese firms give more emphasis on the ability of the employees to work with other employees and not much(prenominal)(prenominal) on their performance. This is due to their belief that as long as a good relationship is established within the organization, the organization can handle other matters effectively (Lee and McCalman, 2008).For the Japanese, good relationships can be developed done the following1) After work dining & imbibing sessionAs previously mentioned, the principle of t suikiai or socialization allow the Japanese to go on to incorporate good relationships as part of their corporate solicitude style. App bently, this can be seen in their popular practice of usually having dinner and drinking sessions amongst employees subsequently office hours (Lee and McCalman, 2008). This is in like manner the idea of the communication plaza concept wherein the executives meet their employees informally to have lunch or dinner and at the equal time to listen to each other (Otsubo, 1993). Through such engagements, employees have the chance to be more familiar with each other away from the four corners of their business premises. This positively affects the connections among the employees. This encapables the Japanese organizations to create a warm and communal workplace where employees feel that they can communicate freely with everyone (Sullivan, 1992). Such practice is not the same with Americans where the latter would prefer to support the division betwee n their soulal and work life.According to Arenson (1993), the connection between U.S. workers and their companies be created by write contracts and the compensation that the companies renumerate to their employees. This complimented the observation rendered by Rehder (1979) that Japanese managers treat their subordinates like their family members while western managers relationships with their subordinates are finished contracts which makes the relationship depersonalized. This is contrary to the belief of Japanese workers that they are obligated to the connection they are working for because of the close relationship and bond that they have with their company and this creates overlap trust between the employees and the company. They likewise have a guts of shared focus to reach the goals of the organization. This management theory has been one of the core set of Honda from 1980s when they start-off established their transactions in the United States and this was choose by Nissan, Mazda and Toyota (Sullivan, 1992).2) Quite often meetings rather than electronic or musical composition workAmericans would prefer to have everything first on paper forwards they can act on a image. Whereas Japanese prefer to do meetings rather than convey their messages through e-mails or doing paper works generally as they despise memos and paper work (Arenson, 1993). According to Lee and McCalman (2008), it is through meetings that the workers would begin to know each other and determine the things that rent to be done. This is most applicable in cases where in that respect are no contracts or written documents involved and through meetings, the employees are able to worke on matters they need to attend to (Lee and McCalman, 2008).3) Informal arranged agreements vs. legal agreementsBefore an American company would deal with another enterprise, it is not needed that the dickens companies develop a good relationship. It does not matter if a company would deal with a competitor provided that the two companies would gain mutual benefit. As a sense of security, American companies need to employ countless lawyers and execute numerous contracts in the leadhand setting matters off. As a pre-requisite, everything needs to be laid break on paper in advance anything is started (Lee and McCalman, 2008). The mentality in America is that everything is governed by laws to make sure that people involved know what is set on the line (Arenson, 1993). It is indifferent for companies to deal with strangers and just develop a relationship during their venture (Lee and McCalman, 2008).This is not the case for Japanese companies as they require exploitation personal relationships before they transact with other business entities. This is because of their belief that it is important that a trusting relationship between two companies is developed before considering to have business venture (Lee and McCalman, 2008). In Japan, there is less colony on the laws and rather, more premium is placed in developing a trusting relationship before going into a business transaction. foreign Americans that prefer to settle everything in a legal way or execute contracts first, Japanese are known to have healthy pride for lawyers and legal or written actions. And unlike the Americans that would employ lawyers and execute contracts before the transaction, Japanese dislike being forced to deal just because of the contracts and in the process may just ignore some provisions thereto. They believe that the situations entrust have changed after signing the contract (Lee and McCalman, 2008).In fact, the two countries have a big difference in the number of lawyers as in the United States, there are over 800,000 lawyers as compared to Japan that has 15,000 lawyers only (Arenson, 1993). Moreover, Japanese would prefer to spend more time interacting with their emf customer or supplier before they would commit themselves (Otsubo, 1993).4) Networking- persona l contactsJapan depends on networking as their society is very much a relationship-oriented one. Japanese would get things done though their personal contacts. For them, a mans success or failure could be directly affected by their connections that he or she has developed over the years. In fact, a new graduated Japanese would almost depend exclusively on his or her connections through university or from personal connections to land a job. That is wherefore there is a mellow probability that the company recruiters would hire applicants coming from the same university as theirs because of the special connection that is existing between the recruiters and the university faculty and staff.This is what Japanese called jinmyaku or the web of human beings. Any internal or orthogonal underpickings to the company is accomplished through personal contacts (Lee and McCalman, 2008). It is then ordinary for an employee to develop extensive personal network within and outside the organizatio n to protect his or her success rate especially that a persons capability depends also on the extensiveness of the networks he or she may have (Kase and Liu, 1996). Such mentality may affect the attitudes of the Japanese of not working with strangers. Through developing personal contacts takes time, once the networks have been created, everything is much easier as there is not much paperwork and lawyers involved. This principle makes it more ambitious for foreign companies to penetrate Japan (Lee and McCalman, 2008).Japanese organizations would prefer hiring somebody who has a connection thereto because hiring a new employee is like welcoming a lifelong member of the corporate family. An individual applying for a position in a company by reason of an advertisement is considered a original stranger. As such, there is a possibility that Japanese companies may bearing after the personal attributes of an applicant rather than his or her technical attributes (Lee and McCalman, 2008). It is very vital for an organization to ensure that the person to be hired is a team player and will blend well within the group. This is in contrast with U.S. companies as they prefer to look at the technical attributes of the applicants and super rely on grade-point averages and specific credentials or competencies (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Networking works wonders in cases where a manager tries to launch a new project and the project is not really within the expertise of the concerned department, managers that have a well-established network within the organization could use their connections to persuade their colleagues to support their projects and also use these connections outside the organization to help make the project successful (Kase and Liu, 1996).Japanese manufacturing companies were able to capitalize in their personalized networking system that they were able to establish when they internationalized their operations during the late 1970s and 1980s. The personalized networks developed between their head offices and subsidiaries made the flow of the information run smoothly and at last positively affect the efficiency of the companies (Kase and Liu, 1996). Moreover, Japanese companies establish personal networking with other Japanese companies in other countries (Yu and Ohle, 2008) for their advantage.5) Teaming up in everything they do sensation of the major difference between Japanese management and Western management is that the social structure of the organization is loose or poorly defined whereas the structure of the organization of the western management is tight or the specific functions are associated with specific boxes (Rehder, 1979).Teaming is a very important aspect in the management of a project. That is why the composition of teams that will handle organizational projects are carefully selected (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Even in creating an organizational project, the composition of the team that will develop and plan the concern ed project is carefully assembled from the different departments of the organization (Gray and Larson, 2003). And up to the time that the organizational project is already running after the planning stage, there are still some times that the strength from the planning stage will coordinate with the functional managers and project managers of the unquestionable operation of the project (Gray and Larson, 2003).As Japanese companies or the Japanese finishing itself has high regard on the web of human beings, it is part of the founding of trust within the team to develop close personal relationship among the team members. The trust created by the tsuikiai plays an important role in the performance of the interconnected tasks of the team members. A high level of trust is requisite for the accomplishment and writ of execution of the various tasks that the manager is leading (Kezner, 2000). Every precise aspect of the project requires the highest level of cooperation and team work among the players performing the tasks. That is why it is the responsibility of the project manager to build and maintain a high level of trust within the team to ensure the successful operation of a project throughout its course (Kezner, 2000). This is where the American employees of some Japanese companies are impressed with how every Japanese members of the team would persist to work together to collect and discuss data gathered and develop ways to respond to different situations and improve their performance (Sullivan, 1992).Another thing that shows the Japanese persistence to teaming up is their end-making system, or also known as ringi or decision by consensus system. This enables the employees to be motivated to work together. The term ringi real came from two words ri, which mode to ask from below and gi which means to deliberate (Ichiro, 1977). By the Japanese decision-making systems, the organization initially debates on the convey of a certain question and determines its possible solutions until consensus if finally reached. The process of the decision making and even the initiation of the process are participated in by all levels of the organization, whether the process be a verbal or written one (Naotsuka, 1978). This is because the Japanese have a view that it is important to first debate the problem or the question to achieve full recognition in its general corporate-wide perspective, after which is to establish a consensus to prevent groups from taking sides on one solution or another hastily. In such case, clash between the prevailing and losing groups is prevented because conflicts will only weaken the implementation of the favored solution. This normative process is called by the Japanese as nemawashi (Naotsuka, 1978).