All about the American and Japanese Management

1. AMERICAN MANAGEMEN
T MODEL
VERSES JAPANESE
MANAGEMENT MODEL
Vivek Goyal

2. American Versus Japanese Manage
ment Model
 Every country is different from other. There mana
gement, food, way of living and standards are all d
ifferent. In some countries government is very infl
uencing while in other they are not much bother.
 Such two different countries are America and Japa
n.
 They have different cultures and management syst
ems as a by-product of culture manifests unique c
haracteristics in both the countries.

3. MAJOR DIFFERENCE
 American are performance oriented unlike
Japanese who are perfectionist.

4. 1. LONG TERM COMMITMENT
 Japanese tends to favor the development of long term relationships an
d strategies over short-term gain.
 They spend much more time up front with a potential customer or su
pplier before making a commitment unlike Americans which then al
lows Japanese to implement decisions much faster after a decision is
made.
 Moreover, in down times Japanese companies avoid layoffs and contr
act terminations contrary to Americans.

5. 2. TRAINING AND EDUCATION
 On the Job Training is an American ideology.
 Communication Plaza Concept—Though this is fading in Japan, employee
s meet with the executive informally over lunch or dinner to listen to each ot
her.

6. 3. GET-IN-TOUCH, LEARNING
FROM FACTS
- Japanese mix with employees and customers:
Japanese engineers, e.g., go to the factories, and don’t wear distinguishing ja
ckets or hard-hats. An insight in Japanese culture…Japanese neighborhoods
are less stratified in terms of economic class. CEOs may live next door to en
gineers and factory workers where as most Americans would not consider liv
ening next to a subordinate.
- Learn from competitor:
Americans are creative, but would be smart to do more copying.
Japanese are world class at copying and improving upon an idea, but would b
e smart to develop their creativity.

7. 4. EFFORT EVALUATION
- Process versus Results:
This seems to be the key difference between Americans and Japanese.
Americans are more results oriented while Japanese focus on process im
provements.
Once they learn how to do something, they work on small improvements—th
ey evaluate effort not results. Because Americans are process averse, they de
pend on manuals to tell what the results should be.
The down side of the process focus is to kill creativity. Overall, the two cultu
res should learn from each other, and become more like each other. Neither c
ompletely process nor completely results focused.

8. 5. CUSTOMER FIRST AND S
HAREHOLDER LAST
The priority order of customers and suppliers is different for U.S. and Japanese
businesses:
America
1. Shareholder
2. Customer
3. Employee
Japan
1. Customer
2. Employee
3. Supplier
4. Community
5. Country
6. Shareholder
Japanese firm is organized for the employee. It is a more human orientation

9. 6. TEAM WORK
 The Japanese and Americans see two different meanings behind these words.
 In Japan team work means to help others, here it means functional maximizat
ion, that is to improve results.
 This leads to a difference in the roles on the team. In Japan the team leader is
always asking team members to help more, here the team leader is responsibl
e for results.
 Americans are more inclined towards individual tasks performance.

10. 7. QUALITY FIRST, COST LAST
 This is the proper ranking of quality in the Japanese organization:
 1. Quality
 2. Quality
 3. Quality
 4. Cost
 Profit is the result of the pursuit of quality—as quality improves, costs go d
own.
 Quality includes products, services, machines, layout, policy, planning and
organization.

11. 8. LEARN FROM THE BEST
 Always look at someone better. The problem is when you get to the top, you
have to become more creative—this is Japan’s challenge
 Short comings of Japans practices are:
 Lack of Decisiveness: they are not transparent. Decisions sometimes take to
o long and they loose their timing.
 Individual Ability Ignored: miss creative opportunities.
 Miss Strategic Opportunities: too much delay and time.

12. COMPARATIVE MANAGEMEN
T
 Because of the success of Japanese compa
nies in world markets,
 Researchers have paid a special attention t
o the Japanese management style . As a res
ult,
 Many scholars compared the Japanese man
agement system with the American and Eu
ropean system

13. Short-Term Employment
Individual Decision Making
Individual Responsibility
Rapid Evaluation and Promotion
Explicit Control Mechanisms
Specialized Career Path
Segmented Concern for Employee
as a Person
Theory A (American)
Lifetime Employment
Collective Decision Making
Collective Responsibility
Slow Evaluation and Promotion
Implicit Control Mechanisms
Nonspecialized Career Path
Holistic Concern for Employee
as a Person
Theory J (Japanese)
Long-Term Employment
Collective Decision Making
Individual Responsibility
Slow Evaluation and Promotion
Implicit, Informal Control with
Explicit, Formalized Measures
Moderately Specialized Career Paths
Holistic Concern, Including Family
Theory Z (Modified American)

14. MODEL OF JAPANESE MANAG
EMENT
 Hatvany and Pucik (1981) offer a model of Japanese ma
nagement in which they define three interrelated strategi
es:
 The authors assert that these general strategies are transl
ated into specific management techniques including
 Job rotation and slow promotion;
 Evaluation of attributes and behavior;
 Emphasis on work groups;
 Open communication;
 Consultative decision making; and concern for employe
e.

15. SEVEN MAJOR CHARACTERIS
TICS OF JAPANESE ORGANIZA
TIONS
 Lifetime employment,
 Slow evaluation and promotion of employe
es,
 Non-specialized career paths,
 Implicit control mechanism,
 Collective decision making,
 Collective responsibility,
 And Holistic concern (building a complete r
elationship between employer and employe
e, including concerning with employee's no
n-work, personal and family, matters).

16. The McKinsey 7-S Framework
Followed by Americans
Strategy
Structure
Systems
Staff
Style
Skills
Shared goa
ls
Organization
Management

17. Pre Theory Z
 Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)
– Identified sets of basic human needs and suggested tha
t they could be arranged in a hierarchy based on their i
mportance to the individual.
 Douglas McGregor (1906–1964)
– Developed the Theory X
(traditional—negative—management approach) and
Theory Y (positive management approach) to workers an
d work motivation.

18. Theory Z (Modified American
Management)
 Theory Z How American Business Can Meet the J
apanese Challenge (Ouchi:1981)
 Theory Z workers:
– Ouchi explains that the employees must be very
knowledgeable about the various issues of the c
ompany, as well as possessing the competence t
o make those decisions.
– He also points out; however, that management s
ometimes has a tendency to underestimate the a
bility of the workers to effectively contribute to
the decision making process

19. Implications of these types of theories f
or leaders
 Modern implications for companies using these theori
es have shown:
 An improvement of people skills,.
 Empowering their employees.
 Stimulating change.
 Helping employees balance work with life conflicts.
 Improving ethical behavior.
 Improvements in turnover rates.
 Productivity, effectiveness.
 Efficiency.
 Organizational behavior
 Job satisfaction

20. CONCLUSION
 Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y, and William Ouchi’s Theory Z have a
ll proven to be useful in the management field.
 Many companies have successfully integrated similar economic and human p
rinciples in a management style from Theory’s Y and Z.
 Theory’s Y and Z have both shown to be quite successful framework for Am
erican companies. Theory X is not obsolete.
 The results of an empirical test of the model show that American manageme
nt style is different from the Japanese.
 The variability between two countries lies among the all six managerial dim
ensions as well.
 While American managers emphasize supervisory style, decision making, an
d control mechanism,
 The Japanese are more concerned with communication process, interdepartm
ental relations, and paternalistic approach.