Analyzes the special features of Japanese management methods-equality between blue-collar and white-collar workers, the impact of unions, and the life-time employment system.

Following the burst of the “economic bubble” in the 1990s, many Japanese companies were required to reform their management systems. Changes in corporate governance were widely discussed during that decade in studies on “Japanese management.” These discussions have resulted in little progress, however, since Americanization became the dominant discourse concerning governance and the management system. There have been few studies conducted from an academic point of view on the internal aspects of organizations that practice traditional Japanese management theory. This book examines how, and the degree to which, the development of market principles accompanying the advances of globalization has affected the traditional Japanese system. It focuses on four aspects of corporate management: management institutions, strategy, organization, and human resource management. The aggregation of the new management system in Japanese companies is regarded as a distinctive Japanese-style system of management. With emphasis on these four aspects, research was conducted on the basic structure of that system, following changes in the market, technology, and society. Further, specific functions of the basic structure of the Japanese-style management system were studied. Those findings are included here, along with a discussion and analysis of the direction of future changes.

Based on a survey of 760 top Japanese managers and over 2,500 top European managers, explores their characteristics and examines the quality of dialogue among senior executives, leadership styles, and national and sectoral differences in managerial behaviour.

The practice and perceptions of Japanese management are undergoing fundamental change. This book sets out to identify the essential currents of change and explain how and why these impinge on the experience of managers in Japan.

With the service industry taking up the largest portion of its GDP, Japan has much to share in the area of managing service industry. This book explores and elucidates the unique management styles in non-manufacturing industries or service industries in contemporary Japan, both practically and theoretically through case studies. These specially selected cases are the management of the world No.1 convenience store chain of Seven-Eleven, the sales finance business and auto sales business of Toyota, application of TPS (Toyota Production System) to life insurance company, performance evaluation of local government, BSC (balance scorecard) in local government hospitals, cost and pricing policy of telecommunication company, Japanese-style OC hospitalityOCO in the retail industry, service level agreement (SLA) in IT and shared service companies, and ICT (Information & Communication Technology) applied to BPN (Business Process Network) of service industry.The analyses presented in this book were carefully laid out in regard to the business in general. It will be useful for business practitioners in service industry and beneficial to the scholars, students or general readers interested in this area.