Journal of
Management
History
5,8
500
Japanese firms sometimes demand all patent rights developed in joint-venture
projects. Foreign firms complain that they can end up paying royalties on their
own technology sold in Japan.
Foreign firms have asked whether the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry (MITI), the Patent Office, and Japanese firms collude to manipulate
patent applications. Although Japan’s Patent Office
is under MITI jurisdiction,
it is assumed that MITI “guides”. In the past, MITI took an active role in
acquiring patented technology from foreign firms to disperse to domestic firms.
Japanese interdependencies
Deming and his counterparts gained renown and respect in Japan, in great
measure, thanks to their understanding of the Japanese culture,
value system,
and associated work ethic.
Japanese society is frequently referred to as a community bound together by
a common fate. This community orientation extends to large Japanese firms as
well. The West regards businesses as organizations created for the pursuit of
individual gain, and firms are by their nature
gesellschaft institutions, or
associations. In Japan, however, they are regarded as
gemeinschaft institutions,
or communities.
Deming’s
concepts, which were based on a
gemeinschaft orientation, struck a
resonant chord with the Japanese as he was describing a philosophical
orientation already inherent in Japanese society. In a sense, Deming was
“preaching to the choir” in Japan, and his concepts
were Western expressions of
pre-existing Japanese social constructs. Deming’s unique contribution lay in
perceiving and articulating the working relationships and practices present in
some parts of Japanese society that offered the greatest benefits if broadly
adopted and routinized.
Yoshida (1994, p. 12; 1989) described the differences in the behavior
patterns of Westerners and Japanese using the opposing concepts of
“individualism” and “interrelationship”. In contrast to “individualism” –
which he sees as deriving from egocentrism,
self-reliance, and the view of
human relations as a means to an end – the “interrelationship system”
recognizes such attributes as interdependence, mutual trust, and the view of
human relations as substantive.
The Japanese management system powerfully reinforces the inter-
relationship model as the corporate family absorbs the individual worker. Team
building, small group meetings, and lifetime employment
represent an attempt
to refocus an employee’s life around the corporation to a degree that few in the
West would find acceptable.
For instance, lifetime employment may be good in some ways, but Japanese companies often
use it as a means of eliminating job choices or pressuring employees to accept lower pay,
slower promotions, and unwanted job assignments. Japanese companies
expect employees to
work long hours, making normal family life difficult. Japanese companies often hire women
not on ability, but with the goal of providing potential marriage partners to male employees,
whose long hours leave little time to seek wives (Eberts and Eberts, 1989, p. 12).
Japan’s post-war
economic
success
501
When a major corporation hires a woman it is not hiring a worker.
It is hiring a potential
wife. The company expects to squeeze a lot of quality work from its brides-to-be, but beauty
and culture are important hiring criteria. Many companies are quite open about the qualities
they are looking for. Some, for example, will not hire a woman unless she lives at home with
her parents. There is no telling what manner of mischief a woman might be up to. And a
woman with a past does not make a fit wife for a future executive (Taylor, 1983, pp. 64-6).
However, as some have pointed out, “the group-oriented
nature of the Japanese
is not indicative of an overall surrender … to the organization … [but]
indicative of the tendency toward commitment to organized activities out of the
understanding that it will bring prosperity to oneself” (Yoshida, 1994).
Viewed somewhat more broadly, the relationship between firms
characterized by
keiretsu (affiliates) is the same. Large firms and small- and
medium-sized firms are engaged in intimate partnerships and take the form of
mutual assistance organizations.
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