Introductory question. The Japanese economy has been in recession for several years and many Japanese companies have lost their competitive edge. Although Japan ranked number 1 in world competitiveness during the 1980's, it has been in steady decline since the early 1990's. Then why study the Japanese and compare American management concepts, assumptions and practices with Japanese practices? (See World Competitiveness Reports, particularly the section with the heading Some Thoughts and the Porter summary. In developing your answer, also think in terms of  the management concepts and techniques that the Japanese developed such as just-in-time, the lean enterprise, target costing, kaizen, and kaizen budgeting and costing). 

1. How does the concept of self appear to differ between the Japanese and American workers?
   (See the Martin 92,  Dillion and Chow, Kato & Merchant  summaries).

2. How do Americans compare with the Japanese in terms of respect for authority? 
    (See the Martin 92 and  Dillion summaries. Does Hofstede's cultural dimension referred to 
    as "power distance" explain this difference? See the Hofstede summary and the
    Chow, Kato & Merchant summary). 
    Do you think our attitude towards authority is changing? If so, how is it changing?

3. Compare the Japanese and American attitudes towards work in terms of reasons to work, and
    the employee-employer relationship. (See the Martin 92 and  Dillion summaries).

4. Why do the Japanese appear to be more cooperative or team oriented than Americans? 
   (See the Dillion, Hiromoto 91 and Martin 92 summaries) .

5. Which do you think is more important in reference to the question above, the characteristics
    of the people, or the characteristics of the system?

6. The Japanese believe that cleanliness and orderliness are important for a productive society
    and for productivity within a company. What do you think? How do cleanliness and
    orderliness promote productivity? (See the Martin 92, Hayes and  Dillion summaries).

7. How are employee suggestions viewed differently by management in the two systems? 
   (See the Martin 92,  Tanaka 94, Spear & Bowen and Spear 2004 summaries).

8. What does management view as the most important resource in a Japanese company? 
   (See the Martin 92,  Cooper & Raiborn and Howell & Sakurai summaries).

9. How does your answer to the previous question translate into management policy, i.e., which
    policies or management practices support your answer? (See the Martin 92 summary).

10. Compare American incentive systems with Japanese incentive systems. How do they differ?
     (See the Martin 92 and Howell & Sakurai summaries).

11. Compare the American and Japanese approaches to making decisions. How do they differ?
      (See the Martin 92, Chow, Kato & Merchant and Howell & Sakurai summaries).

12. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the democratic process of voting, e.g., in
      committee decisions?

13. Compare the Japanese concepts of management dress and accessibility with the traditional
     American concepts. How do they differ?  (See the Martin 92 summary).

14. Compare the Japanese and American orientation towards short run versus long run goals.
     (See the Martin 92 and Cooke 93 summaries).

15. Explain the difference between the continuous improvement concept and the constrained
     optimization concept. (See the Martin 92, Tanaka 94, Monden & Lee and Dyer summaries).
     (Several other articles are applicable, e.g., see Spear & Bowen and Womack & Jones).

16. Provide some examples of American decisions based on constrained optimization that
     appear to conflict with the concept of continuous improvement. 
     (See the Martin 92 and Monden & Lee summary).

17. Relate the concepts of just-in-time (JIT) and just-in-case (JIC) to the concepts of continuous
      improvement and constrained optimization. Which concepts go together and which ones
     conflict? See the Martin 92, Hayes and Dyer summaries and MAAW's Figure 8-3). 
     Explain why. 

18. Thinking in terms of the definition of quality as conformance to specifications, can a
      company have too much quality? Compare the Japanese (Deming) answer to this question
      with the frequent American answer. (See the Martin 92 and Hayes summaries).

19. Compare the Japanese and U. S. Company strategies in terms of equipment acquisition and
      maintenance. Relate your answer to the JIT and JIC concepts. 
      (See Martin 92, Hayes, and Bensaou & Earl summaries).

20-22. Leverage is an important concept in terms of both personal and business strategy. 
          Three types of leverage (there are others) include financial leverage, human resource
           leverage and technological leverage. 

20. What is financial leverage and how is it used? What are some of the advantages and
      disadvantages of using financial leverage?

21. What is human resource leverage and how is it used? What are some of the advantages and
      disadvantages of using human resource leverage? (See Martin 92 summary).

22. What is technological leverage and how is it used? What are some of the advantages and
      disadvantages of using technological leverage? (See the Bensaou & Earl summary for an idea).

23. Compare Japanese and American labor unions. Do you think the Japanese type of union
      would work in the U. S.? Why? (See the Martin 92 summary and the Note on Saturn).

24. Compare the Japanese management concept of control with the American concept. 
     How do they differ? (See Martin 92, Tanaka 94, Chow, Kato & Merchant,
     Howell & Sakurai, Spear & Bowen, and Spear summaries).

25. What is target costing? Is this concept consistent with the concepts of constrained
      optimization and continuous improvement? One, both or neither? Explain. 
      (See the Tanaka 94, Monden & Lee, Sakurai 89 and Hiromoto 88 summaries).

26. How do investment decisions and investment strategy differ between Japanese and American
     companies? (See Martin 92 and Bensaou & Earl summaries).

27. What is a horizontal or portfolio investment strategy? (See Martin 92 summary for an idea).

28. Some observers believe that Japanese methods cannot be applied as well in the United
     States. (e.g., see the Dillon, Wheelright, Spear & Bowen, Womack & Jones, Dyer and
     Ouchi & Jaeger summaries and the Note on Saturn). Do you think this is mainly a cultural
     problem, or a problem with the way American organizations are designed?

29. Why have some American researchers believed that the Japanese were hiding the real secrets
      to their management system? (See the Cooper & Raiborn, Johnson & Broms,
      Spear & Bowen, Spear, and Womack & Jones summaries).

30. The Japanese were very competitive until the early 1990's. What appear to be the main
     causes for Japan's decline? (See the Sakurai 95, Crawford and Porter summaries and the
     World Competitiveness Reports for some recent competitiveness ranking).

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