Japanese Management Techniques - Essay Example

Japanese Management Techniques History The Western powers came to learn of the Japanese management economic strategies and techniques after World War I. However, the origin of these styles is much older than the west thinks. They started towards the end of the nineteenth century. This was when the West influenced the start of modernization under the monarchy to came to existence in eighteen sixty-eight. This was the Meiji restoration (Herbig, 1997, 56). The government of Japan started practicing an open economic system and society to regulate influences from outside, a response to bitter experiences by her neighbors because of colonization of its Asian counterparts. The aim of this system and policy was to wade off any interests of Western Conquerors. Some of the modern economic practices developed during the reign of Meiji. It is important to remember that during the Meiji period, the Japanese economy was still in shambles, finishing the remnants of feudalism having endured centuries of closure to foreign investors both directly and indirectly. This system was responsible for the slow technological development in the country. This was because the approach emphasized on building domestic imitation and innovations on Western goods. This system worked at the expense of importing products (McMillan, 1996, 71). The spirit of Meiji era captured the entire philosophy thus Japanese spirit, Western technology. Elements of the spirit and the Japanese culture over flowed to the twentieth century where the autonomy of the economy was evident both at micro and at macroeconomic levels. The ambition was to preserve the traditional character. The national economy has a long history of putting measures that restrict the process of bringing imports into Japan both directly and indirectly by investors. This has led to concomitant trade excesses in Japan for many years. This culture trickles down to the where large and complex families own and run most companies interdependently centered on their banking industries. The banks include Hitachi, Sumitomo, and Mitsubishi among many more. Economists agree that theoretically, the business organizations manage import components, raw materials, as well as capital from abroad through their affiliated organizations. Analysis The Japanese management techniques or the Japanese management style refers to a group of Japanese cultural ways of working as well as managerial behaviors after the World War II. Most of these management aspects wee responsible for driving the Japanese economy to the status as one of the world economic superpowers. The economy of Japan is the second largest in world second to that of the United States of America. The management techniques are also behind the growth of Japanese business especially the manufacturing sector. This sector is the most competitive in the world when compared to other manufacturing sectors. However, through the nineteen nineties, Japan struggled through economic hardships and recession leading to some experts in economic matters to question the ability of the traditional Japanese management styles to sustain the economy. The Japanese management technique concentrates on the need to for the information to move from bottom of the company or institution to the top. It is the bottom up approach for flow of information. This process leads to the senior management taking over supervisory roles as opposed to the hands-on system of management. The management style originates in the mid-level of the institution or company then moves upwards to the higher level for approval and ratification. The greatest advantage for this system of management is that the teams tasked with the responsibility of implementing a management policy are involved in the process of developing the same. The rise of a Japanese manager in the management ranks in the company of institution makes him or her more responsible, seems unassuming, as well as unambitious. Evaluation of effective leadership in the Japanese management technique does not put into consideration individual forcefulness and personality. The most important role of a manager in the Japanese system is to give an environment where the other employees will flourish. To achieve this, the manager has to be accessible most of the times, able, and willing to share information with other employees. This becomes a top-bottom approach where instructions are given instructions and guidelines. In return, the manager expects the working team to give him or her information as well. This is giving feedback in bottom-up approach. Comparatively, instruction and guidelines may appear unclear to most employees and the people in Western countries. Such information makes them confused and frustrated. The complications in communication channels and procedures cause the confusion and frustrations among the people in the west (Publishing, 2009, 33). The western powers are used to coding their speeches. In this case, what a manager or an employee says does not correspond to the actual meaning making the need for clear and direct instructions or guidelines irrelevant. Employees in Japan have the ability to second-guess what their bosses want and respond accordingly. This is the reason they can ask for clarifications just in case they find some of the guidelines being vague. The Japanese management culture prefers to seek a better understanding from the start that allows elimination of misunderstandings. This avoids tensions as well as poor outcomes in the company. The Profile of Management Techniques The management practices in Japan have various characteristics most of which remain traditional. They include among others in-house training of leaders, wide variety of the use of quality control perspectives, consensual as well as decision-making process that are decentralized, work standards and ethics that are carefully codified, lifetime employment and compensating employees based on seniority, and putting emphasis on developing harmonious relations among employees (Mroczkowski, 1998). Scholars propose that these are generalizations as per the conventional formula. The current economy in Japan adds variations to these features o suit prevailing circumstances. Some of the characteristics for instance, have been reconsidered at high rates in the past few years. Management Education Education for managers for institutions and companies in Japan usually occurs informally and within the organizations. However, the number of Chief Executives in Japan have university education is high just like those in the United States as well as those in the European Union. The difference among the chief executives is in the number of those with postgraduate academic qualifications. This number far much higher in Europe and the United States compared to those in Japan. Surprisingly, one Japanese university offers a degree similar to the Master of Business Administration (Harukiyo, 1998, 19). This happens to be an essential component of management in the United States. Undergraduate programs in Japan do not have well-structured programs for management education. This means that the education system in Japan is not designed to produce managers and administrators. The business society in Japan does not give preference to undergraduate education programs as the best processes of attaining business skills. This is the reason that business organizations peg their hiring decisions on general attributes as opposed to the knowledge of the recruit. The general attributes include among others ambition and character. Rarely do you find companies hiring employees to fill particular occupations. Perhaps, this explains why postgraduate degree programs are not valuable. This is because such programs concentrate on specialization in particular fields. The job market expects job seekers to be flexible and malleable with ability to incorporate overall interests of the business organizations as opposed to being an expert in a small area. The human resources department applies the mentor system at the initial training stage of recruits. This system entails the use of senior managers and mid-level managers as facilitators as well as being role models for the recruits to emulate. Priorities and Capital The Japanese management style gives priority to the source of finance for businesses. The organizations in Japan prefer to get funding from banks and other money lending. This makes them a higher debt-to-equity ratios rather than the capital from stock markets as preferred in the United States (Dirks, & Ribault, 1999, 41). This system gives little pressure to the managers in Japan to get full utility of short-term earnings with the desire to please shareholders. This is contrary to what takes place in the United States where pressure is intense to attain quarterly earnings as expected. Most scholars concur that the Japanese management techniques are presently moving into a new and different direction but still carries traditional aspects. Works Cited Dirks, Daniel, & Thierry Ribault, eds. Japanese Management in the Low Growth Era. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1999. Harukiyo, Hasegawa. Hook. Japanese Business Management. London: Routledge, 1998. Herbig, Paul. A Historical Perspective of Japanese Innovation. Management Decision, September-October 1997. McMillan, Charles. The Japanese Industrial System. 3rd rev. ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1996. Mroczkowski, Tomasz. The End of Japanese Management: How Soon? Human Resource Planning, September 1998. Publishing, OECD. Oecd Reviews of Risk Management Policies Japan: Large-scale Floods and Earthquakes. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2009. Internet resource. Read More