Japanese Style of Management

Amity International Business School

Japanese Style of Management


Pertinent Characteristics of Japanese Management

• Company-wide union or house union

• General preference for inexperienced fresh graduates from schools or colleges

• Preference for promotions from within

• Life-time employment

• Quality Control Circles (QCCs)


Pertinent Characteristics of Japanese Management

• Training practices

– On-the-job training

– In-house and outside training

– Job rotation

• Decision making and consultation practices

– Bottom-up communication

– Regular management-labour consultation

• Settlement of conflict trough negotiations


Understand Japanese Management – The Company as the Family

• Social belonging

• Life-time employment and loyalty

• Social status of employees linked to success of company

• Social role of employment– company song– company pin– Paternalism

• Emphasis on harmony (suppression of conflict)

• Seniority system


Understand Japanese Management – The Company as the Family

• Zaibatsu Groups –

– the financial & industrial conglomerates were outgrowths of family enterprises

• Scarcity of daily necessities during World War II

– Fostered company-based cooperative activities in the procurement and distribution of goods

– Companies were used by the government to distribute rations


Understand Japanese Management – Recruitment and Training

• Fresh graduates are recruited each spring through company's entrance examinations and interviews– Well known corporations usually focus on a few high ranking schools

and universities

• Costs and benefits of training internalised within one firm (paternalism / loyalty) – Continuous training

• Seniority system facilitates on-the-job training– Senior workers train junior workers without fear of jeopardizing their

own position


Understand Japanese Management – Participatory Management

• Process of decision making not centralized at the top

– Process of broad consultation and consensus

• System cannot move capable individuals upwards

– Moves authority downward through personal contacts and relationships (of CEO and junior)


Understand Japanese Management – Participatory Management

• Anyone with a stake in the decision will be consulted (hierarchical relationship blurred).

– Explains why talented, able and young employees can be satisfied under the seniority-based system

• The Father-leader

– Authoritarian

– Able to advance corporate goals through unobtrusive persuasion and conciliation

– Synthesizes group with warmth, sincerity and humaneness

Japanese Style of Management

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