Abstract
Proceeding from a Japanese viewpoint I should like to indicate two important considerations for promoting a transfer of managerial and organizational methods to Eastern Europe. In this paper we must examine, firstly, the conditions necessary for and, secondly, the conditions sufficient for such a transfer. Necessary conditions are the existence of a market economy system and the establishment of proper infrastructure; sufficient conditions are product quality and information technology.
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F. A. von Hayek, Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, London 1967, p. 174. A paper submitted to the Tokyo meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in September 1966 and published in Il Politico, 1966.
Cf. the works of Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow, Ludwig Erhard, Alfred Müller-Armack, etc.
Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, Tokyo 1990, p. 6.
op. cit., p. 7.
op. cit., p. 154. Wolferen further wrote: “One of the most powerful LDP politicians of the late 1980s, Kanemaru Shin, played a major role in preserving and strengthening the dango system against measures planned by the Fair Trade Commission.” P. 155.
op. cit., p. 450.
Wolferen, op. cit., p. 300. “In theory the captains of industry adhere to classical free-market practices and do not welcome bureaucratic interference. Officially, again, the political preferences of the public are represented by the politicians it has elected to the Diet. According to this same official reality, there exist an anti-monopoly law and a Fair Trade Commission to prevent cartels, and a judiciary that guards democratic freedoms and individual rights. Labour unions ensure that worker grievances get a fair hearing, and numerous other institutional safeguards protect the ‘democratic free-market system’ from its enemies. The absence of any independent judiciary, any labour unions primarily representing the interests of workers and any effective safeguards against business-bureaucratic market-fixing conspiracies is obscured. Without the institutionalized divergence between formal and substantial reality, there would have been no post-war economic ‘miracle.’”
Wolferen, op. cit., p. 164.
Vincent Lobry, “Telecommunications Infrastructure,” Tadeo Saito, ed., Information Technology-led Development, Tokyo 1990, p. 112.
Susumu Yamakage, “A Strategy for IT-led Development,” Saito, Information Technology-led Developmentop. cit., p. 22.
Shigeru Mizuno, Company-wide Total Quality Control, Tokyo 1988 (6th ed. 1992), pp. 4–9; Joseph M. Juran, “Planning and Practices in Quality Control,” Lectures on Quality Control, Tokyo: Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers, 1954, p. 2.
op. cit., p. 1.
Yamakage, op. cit., p. 15.
ibid.
Tadao Saito, “Developing Asian Countries and the Information Age,” Saito, op. cit., p. 3.
Saito, op. cit., p.3.
Yamakage, op. cit., p. 16. [Translator’s note: Quotation as given.]
op. cit., p.21.
op. cit., p.28.
Gregory T. S. Thong, “Foundations of Human Resources Management Practice in Japanese Companies in Malaysia,” Yamashita, ed., Transfer of Japanese Technology and Management to the ASEAN Countries, pp. 140–143. The study produced the following results: (1) Evaluation of Japanese-Style Management in Malaysia. The questionaires were sent out in both Japanese and English; 16 managers responded in Japanese, eight in English. We can assume that Japanese managers answered in Japanese and local managers in English. It was therefore determined that differences in the content of answers in Japanese and English must indicate a gap in perception on the effectiveness of Japanese-style management and transfer of technology and management. (2) Transfer of Technology. There are some differences between the Japanese and English evaluations of technology transfer. On the whole, English answers indicate the completion of technology transfer more than Japanese ones do, and local managers evaluated it positively. There are no answers that show the completion of transfer in ‘production,’ ‘development of new product’ and’ design’ technology, but English answers indicate a higher expectation of transfer in the future than do the Japanese. Local managers expect the transfer of such highly dynamic technology as ‘production equipment,’ ‘development of new product’ and ‘design technology,’ while Japanese managers think that this would be very difficult. Such discrepancy is caused by the different understanding of technology transfer held by Japanese and local managers. Japanese managers point out that Malaysian interests hold that’ transfer of technology’ is the same as’ localization of post’ and that post transfer will bring technology transfer. Japanese managers insist that post transfer is one of the means for industrialization. (3) Transfer of Management. With respect to the transfer of management, no
Johzen Takeuchi, “’Technology Transfer’ and Japan-Thai Relations,” Yamashita, Transfer of Japanese Technology and Management to the ASEAN Countries op. cit., p. 212.
op. cit., p. 232.
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin • Heidelberg
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Oba, H. (1996). Remarks Concerning the Transfer of Managerial and Organizational Methods to Eastern Europe: Opportunities and Problems for Japan. In: Hax, H., Klenner, W., Kraus, W., Matsuda, T., Nakamura, T. (eds) Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85229-9_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85229-9_7
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