A Critical Analysis of the Japanese Approach to Management Philosophy

Stuart D. B. Picken

International Christian University in Tokyo , Japan



Abstract

A principal purpose of the objective article is to clarify the basic and defining characteristics of Japanese management in comparative perspective. In order to understand the defining features of Japanese management, it is perhaps helpful to see a basic outline of its hierarchical structure. The second part of this paper is the understanding of Social Responsibility in Japanese Management. The management of corporations may consequently be viewed as one aspect of the management of society. Having looked at aspects of corporate and social management relevant to this discussion, it is now time to examine the overall context within which these operate, namely, the capitalist economic system. Those most critical of Japan, or most cynical, normally argue from the implicite premise of a model of the global economy, in which, at present, Japan is a misfit that will, eventually, be brought into line. Models of the global economy are convincing in Western business schools but, alas, they sometimes do not work in the real world, particularly the Asian world. The same may be said of theories of management.

Keywords:

Japanese Management, global economy, Asian Styles of Management, Social Responsibility in Japan, the capitalist economy system



Abegglen J. C., The Strategy of Japanese Business (Cambridge, Mass: Ballinger,1984).

Hirschmeier J. & Yui T., The Development of Japanese Business, 1600–1973 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975).

Hutcheson F., Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (London: Printed by J. Darby, 1725).

Kwan L. Y. , Forty Years of Political Discourses (Li Guang Yao, Sishi Nian Zheng Xuan, Singapore: United Press, 1995), pp. 581–82.

MacMurray J., The Self as Agent and Persons in Relation (Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1953–54, published by Faber, London, 1961).

Mohamad M. & Shintaro I., The Voice of Asia: Two Leaders Discuss the Coming Century (Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International, 1995).

Picken S., Ideology, Social Goals and Historical Change: Aspects of the Thought of Mao Zedong in Comparative Perspective’, NUCB Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2001, pp. 75–88.

Picken S., Modernization, Japan, China and the West: Comparative Observations, ICU Journal of Asian Cultural Studies, 1997.

Picken S., The Japanese model of the moral corporation in Finance and Ethics Quarterly (Edinburgh, 1995).

Roberts J. G., Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1975).

Russell O., The House of Mitsui (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1970).

Sakakibara E., Beyond Capitalism: The Japanese Model of Market Economics (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America for the Economic Strategy Institute, 1993).

Yoshino M. Y., Japan’s Managerial System: Tradition and Innovation (Boston: MIT Press, 1968).

Download


Published
2016-03-31


Picken, S. D. B. (2016). A Critical Analysis of the Japanese Approach to Management Philosophy. Przegląd Prawno-Ekonomiczny, (34 (1), 11–33. Retrieved from https://czasopisma.kul.pl/index.php/ppe/article/view/15576

Stuart D. B. Picken 
International Christian University in Tokyo



License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.