Management Techniques in North America & Japan

Successful management techniques must avail themselves of the businessÆs cultural background to ensure the right conditions for implementing management strategies by influencing the way managers think and act. The primary reason for the difference in management techniques employed in North American and Japanese businesses is the contrasting cultural values that underlie these techniques. In particular, North American cultural systems value individualism, while the Japanese cultural system values community relationships. The result is that North American management techniques employ strategies that are profit-oriented, while Japanese techniques focus on the process. These different management styles, however, are not entirely incompatible. In fact, each model possesses features that could be combined to create efficient and effective cross-cultural management techniques.

North American cultural systems value individualism. As a result, innovation and self-sufficiency are prized cultural goals and North American management techniques are profit-oriented and based on the belief that the shareholdersÆ interests are the most significant. Under this system, management acts in the interest of the shareholder because it is the individual shareholder who supplies the risk capital in exchange for control over the business. This model has a vertical authoritative structure. The chief executive officer is the highes

. . .
top executive levels, as a result of polarity-oriented Western thinking, which thinks along a linear structure. Decisions in Japanese companies, on the other hand, may originate at all levels and are coordinated and approved by top executives over time. This management technique arises from the Yin-Yang way of thinking, which is deeply rooted in the Japanese culture and allows for the simultaneous consideration of both sides of a problem. The communitarian nature of Japanese management techniques arises from the Japanese family system, which is the core of Japanese society. This cultural system uses collective thinking to achieve ôwa,ö which refers to the strength of human unity or harmony in decision-making. This group concept continues into the workplace or ôshokubaö where Japanese management techniques foster a sense of group harmony among workers through consensus decision-making rather than adversarial postures. Approximately 90 percent of the decisions made at the lower and middle management levels in Japanese companies are made using consensus decision-making, also known as the ringi system. Management techniques in Japanese companies often use group meetings with managers to discuss guidelines for productio
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
North American, Decisions Japanese, Undoubtedly Japanese, Japan Successful, north american, American Japanese, management techniques, Linear Western, Moreover Japanese, Competition Japanese, japanese companies, japanese management, Journal Economic, japanese management techniques, Relations Review, japanese businesses, north american businesses, american businesses, american management, cultural system, american management techniques, north american management, japanese cultural, business structure, japanese cultural system,
Approximate Word count = 1289
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Management Techniques in North America & Japan