proach to decision-making than found in most U.S. firms. In American companies, major decisions are generally made by a small group of top managers. In some cases, a single person will be responsible for making all important decisions.
The Japanese approach can be described as a participatory style of management because it seeks the cooperation of all the people involved. It may be noted that this cooperation often does not involve every single person within the total organization. Rather, individual decisions are usually handled by teams which specialize in their own areas of expertise. Charles E. Berezin in Productivity Review (1989, Autumn) describes such teams as representative groups, "each responsible for a clearly defined set of inputs and outputs while sharing a common mission, philosophy, and goals" (p. 353). In a typical Japanese company, teams are set up to deal with decisions which pertain to individual departments. These teams have a certain amount of autonomy over those decisions, although it may be noted that "teams will need
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