authors believe that the dominant competition for a great many of the companies in the world today is from the Japanese, who are increasingly setting the pace of competition throughout the markets of the free world. In fact, "the rapid development of Japan's companies, or kaisha, is startling" (Abegglen and Stark, 1985, p.3).
This attitude is also expressed by many Americans when dealing with the perceptions of multinational business development, trade agreements, and even the "condition of the U.S. economy" (Thomas, 1991, p. 44). Because of the particularly aggressive brand of management style, and the global economic situation, Japanese corporations are placing far ahead of many western countries in their desire to improve their own economic situation often at the expense of other corporations, particular economic patterns, and the like (Rudolf, 1991, pp. 58-60).
Not only has Japanese management style become the target of almost every written medium in the United States, numerous studies have shown that opinions and perceptions from Japan do matter to most Americans. One recent news magazine devoted an entire edition to the topic, "What Japan Thinks of Us." In that article, the authors note that there are many complex and demanding variables that are involved when assessing the situation with Japan. To most Americans, what the Japanese think matters enormously. No other foreign country comes close to exerting so much influence on our daily lives. The industrial Midwest has known that for a long time, where Japanese competition injured the auto, steel and machine tool industries. They are learning as well in Silicon Valley, on Route 128 outside Boston and in the Pentagon, ". . . where many fear that if the United States doesn't wake up, Japan will overtake the industries that will spur economic growth in the 21st century; semiconductors, supercomputers, industrial robots, biotechnology . . .." (Powell and Martin, 19...