AM Lecture 1

The China syndrome?

Japanese management style has been shown to fail in the West, but is there a place where it could be successfully transferred?

There has been increasing academic interest in Japanese manufacturing plants in China, due to cultural similarities. The same questions remain, however, such as how Chinese workers will react to a Japanese system.

Taylor

Taylor (1999) studied production practices in Japanese manufacturing plants in China. Like in Western plants, production methods needed to be adapted for them to be accepted into Chinese culture.

Thus we cannot meaningfully speak of "Japanisation". We can transfer Japanese practices elsewhere, but they will always need to be adapted to the local environment.

Taylor (2001) looked at personnel practice in Japanese firms in China. His main findings were:

• Despite claims of cultural similarity between Japan and China, personnel management practices could not be transferred successfully
• Practices that appeared Japanese-inspired were often informed by local practices
• There was diversity in the forms of practices used, indicating neither sophistication nor a single recipe of management methods

Hofstede

Some of these cultural differences can be observed in Hofstede's analysis. In terms of individuality, China scored 15 and Japan 46, indicating that China is far more collectivist in manner. In addition, on the Power Distance scale, China scored 80, while Japan scored a far smaller 54, suggesting China's much larger power distance.

Conclusion

When the West observed Japanese management, they took the wrong view, thinking that the techniques had universal applicability. Practices worked in Japan, but they relied on the commitment of the worker. Therefore commitment to the company was high, but employee satisfaction was low, demonstrating that Japanese management had never been there at all. The moral of the story is that we should never take things as they are, we need always to amend them to suit the local environment.