BTBB: Japan's Global Reach

Language: English

Title:

Japan’s Global Reach: The Influences, Strategies and Weaknesses of Japan’s Multinational Companies

Authors: Bill Emmott

Pages: 244

ISBN: 0-7126-4928-X

Years: 1992

Nature of the books: Management, Organization

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How do I come across the book?

I bought it in a 2^nd hand book store; perhaps, because during then, I work in Japanese company thus I see the need to learn and understand more about Japanese culture.

How do I find this book?

I find this book very comprehensive and explained about how Japanese company expands their business using their belief in management; however, not all their approach is effective, and favored by people. Japanese culture is very stringent and they emphasize a lot more in mindset of their employees to ensure all march towards the same direction.

Some of the statement….

…Japanese is using military approach to industry, i.e. Management by fear…page 74

I would say ‘Management by will is far better’, adopting the military approach in management do not work anymore in the 21^st century; company would become mechanical where people are treated as machine more than ‘human’.

…The differences in Japanese culture is the flexibility to move around, people are basically willing to be trained, to be move and is the best applied in Japan…page 76

…because they give equal opportunity to everyone in an organization, so when come to promotion, they have to give promotion to those longer serving in organization…page 76

This is very true because the promotion in Japanese company is relying on ‘seniority’, and promotion is based on the standard criteria tabled by the Human Resource based on the duration of the employees have served in the organization. Sometimes it appears not fair to others…

My thought is that, Japanese company is like ‘A snake is trying to eat a cow and could choke to death’; without proper planning and simply adapting the culture into another different world is not going to work sometimes, because the culture simply could conflict with local culture, and insist to proceed makes management difficult in finding the right candidate that fit the cultures or into training new people to think alike in organization. That explained why most of the Japanese company prefers to hire people who can speak their language or graduate from Japanese University, where the least they are in experience with Japanese culture. Overall, Japanese success in stupidity of people, they are an opportunity seeker but also risk avoidance...

How has it helped me in my life, work or any others…?

Understanding of how effective is Japanese management style, and the strength and weaknesses. Some of its style can really work with some adaptation to the local culture. By far, Japanese management do has its benefits, at least with their military approach, managed to ensure consistency across all subsidiaries.