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JAPANESE BUSINESS CULTURE Essay, Research Paper

Japanese Business & Culture bus 258.1An investigation of Japanese corporate culture, its trends and changes.

Table of Contents1.0 Introduction

2.0 Procedure

3.0 Findings

3.1 Changing social culture.

3.2 Business Culture in Japan

3.3 Why change is needed

3.4 What is Japan and her corporations doing to develop and change

4.0 Conclusion

5.0

Japanese Business & CultureAn investigation Japanese corporate culture, its trends and changes.1.0 IntroductionThis report is based around the following quote: “Japan’s corporate culture is the product of uniquely Japanese social and historical influences, so deeply rooted as to easily repel outside influences. Bur Japanese corporations need to change their basic goals….”

This report will discuss nature of corporate culture in Japan, and why change is needed.

The maximum length is 2,000 words

2.0 Procedure

The report was produced using library based research because of the time scale and cost. The sources used include text books, journals and newspapers.. The references have been made ‘Harvard Style’ and can be found in the Bibliography.

3.0 Findings

The Japanese business culture has been described by Beedham as a culture that acts like a clan, in that there is a large amount of authority given to the man at the top, and in the commitment that is shown by the people around him, Beedham points out that this can be evident in the way that their car factories, investment banks and government ministries are ran.

This clan-like-behaviour has the effect of making decision making painfully slow, with compromises having to be met in all directions, but this is starting to change, as the people of Japan are starting to change and have different priorities. These changes can be put down to several factors that are changing in Japanese society as a whole.

3.1 Changing social culture.

The increasing and speeding up of urbanisation is one way in which corporate culture is being changed. Because of this urbanisation there is less commitment to groups as people become more individual and have their own priority in life. Marriage and family ties are also starting to loosen. Links between children, parents and grandparents are not the same as they were ten years ago.

The greatest impact on peoples commitment to their work is money. As the Japanese become richer, they are starting to see that there is a lot more to just working every hour possible. With this extra money they have been given the opportunity to make friends out of the workplace and focus on other activities such as clubbing, music, football etc. and they are seeing spare time differently. But this is only taking place on the outside edge of Japanese society and the core of Japan which includes the big businesses, are still operating in the traditional way of life and it has been estimated that it will take a further fifty years before a new way of living and lifestyle becomes the norm. (Beedham)

3.2 Business Culture in Japan

Business Culture is said to be the product of the mind and is often described as:

“how we do things round here”. (source unknown)

Before describing the corporate culture within Japan it is useful to understand the corporate culture in the West as a comparison. In the West, business is simply about profit seeking. Its Managers and workers are there to increase profit for the owners of a corporation. The employees are evaluated by how much of a contribution they make towards the generating of this profit. The Western corporation is designed like a profit machine and operated like a profit machine.

Within the Japanese business world, the corporation is not seen as been there for just profit. Profit is important, but it is not the only reason for the company’s existence, but involves people and their future. The community factor is as important, and sometimes more important than, short term profitability. The Japanese business people see their company as a community, this community has within in it people who happen to live together by working together. The company is a living society which needs profit as sustenance for growth.

Western Europe and China, has seen many revolutions throughout their history in areas such as their religions, politics, industry and culture. When these revolutions occur new system of thinking replaced the old, sometimes these changes are forced upon the population. It was not so in Japan, where new system of thought, whether made internally or introduced from abroad, was added to or mixed with what was the current ideal.

Because of this accumulation and mixing of ideas, the Japanese mind has became more complex than the so called “enlightened” cosmopolitan Western mind, and retains the archaic, medieval, modern and post-modern views. An example of the almost schizophrenic thinking of a typical business man from Japan could be, an English speaking business manager of an internationally operating company may behave like a rice growing villager in his board room discussions, then the same person behaves like a Samurai clansman in the competitive market, and like a devoted Buddhist in social functions and like a scientist when he is in search of a solution for his business problems.

At the core of the Japanese mind there is a basic notion of ANIMISM, this is the belief that everything has a spirit which is the nature-worshipping religion of Shintoism. Confucianism, Taoism and other schools of thought which came from China are added on top of Shintoism, which is still a powerful element of the Japanese culture and determines many aspects of the social and organisational behaviours. Chinese and Korean scholars and immigrants brought in other

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