Japanese and American Management Styles

The power of both the work ethic and good management is particularly evident in Japan. The domestic auto industry likes to explain the success of the Japanese in the U.S. market solely as a factor of lower price. A Toyota or Nissan car theoretically contains $1,500 worth of free features when compared to the price of an American automobile. While essentially correct, the argument avoids one vital issue: market price is a component of function. If Japanese cars did not perform, they could not be given away. Early Japanese imports were weak, uninspired copies of outmoded English designs, and while cheap, they did not sell well. As soon as they were upgraded to fill the needs of the American market, the Japanese "car" miracle began (Meyer, 1989, pp. 52-53).

The Japanese had no serious automobile industry until the 1960's. The first car was built in Japan in 1902, but

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ith much the same suddenness. In 1973, at age sixtysix, he retired along with his partner, Fujisawa, and left the company in the hands of younger men. Honda appointed as his successor forty-five-year-old Kiyoshi Kawashima, who was both an engineer and the former manager of the company's racing program. As he grew older, Honda never lost his enthusiasm for radical change. Many of his senior managers are men in their early thirties who share his enthusiasm for egalitarian teamwork. His executives and line workers, all of whom wear the same white Honda overalls, fight for the same parking places and eat together in the same cafeterias (Toy, 1988, pp. 90-96). It was Honda who defied conventional Japanese thinking and built the first factory on American soil in Marysville, Ohio. His associates believed that the American laborer, embroiled in union politics and handicapped by a sloppy work ethic, could not meet Japanese standards of quality. Honda thought otherwise. At first, the Marysville factory manufactured motorcycles on a limited basis. But the results were so encouraging that production was raised to 60,000 units a year and some models were even exported. Honda was prompted to expand the facility to produce automobil
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