Brannen, Liker and Fruin (1999)

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Recontextualisation

"Hard" and "soft" technologies reflect the difference between physical and social technologies which needed to be transferred.

From this an analysis could be made of the different things people had to learn and they all varied in terms of "system embeddedness". The more they were embedded in to the system, the more tacit knowledge was required and the more culture mattered. Hard technology involved explicit knowledge, while soft technology involved tacit knowledge.

It was found that shop floor workers were needed to be better qualified to perform well. Quality circles were introduced to empower the workers so they could learn more and help improve the company.

Managers needed to know how to work the machines on the shop floor as well as, if not better than, the employees. This shared knowledge would bind managers and employees and so the workers were more likely to work harder for their managers. Unfortunately, many middle managers in the US have little experience on the shop floor and were quite alienated from their employees.

In Japan, job responsibilities are more broad than they are in the US, so everyone can help everyone else (This goes against the Taylorist approach of specialised division of labour).

Shop floor discipline was essential for success. In Japan they are very clean - this is something they are taught from birth, that everything should be kept impeccable. People work better in a cleaner environment and if they help to keep it that way, they feel responsible and will work harder.

In the end, the transfer to NSK was successful. One of the reasons was that more than 40 Japanese advisors visited Ann Arbor to give advice - they were never left to their own devices for any length of time. It was recognised that it is impossible to transfer whole management systems in one go and that it needed to be done gradually.