The Future of Japanese Manufacturing in the UK

The expansion of Japanese FDI into the UK manufacturing sector during the 1980s and early 1990s gave rise to the debate on the Japanization of British industry. The paper argues that this debate was constructed from a Western perspective. It did not locate the strategies and structures of Japanese subsidiaries within the broader context of how Japanese multinational corporations were evolving in this period. The necessity to look at these issues from a more global perspective is reinforced by the changes which have occurred since the mid 1990s in the environment for Japanese multinationals. The global economy offers more choices to firms about their location as well as facing them with a more competitive environment. In the Japanese case, this is leading to a growing differentiation between standardized mass production (which can be located in Asia and Eastern Europe) and science–led sectors of industrial production (which necessitate location near to centres of research and development expertise in the USA and Europe). This means that Japanese firms are reconsidering the strategy and structure of their subsidiaries in the UK. Standardized mass production will only survive in the UK as long as costs can be pushed further down and productivity increased, both of which are difficult conditions to meet given possibilities elsewhere in the world for cheap mass production. The growing area of investment will be in science–based manufacturing, though here the UK will be competing against the USA and Germany for Japanese investment. Here, however, the organizational and management characteristics of Japanese subsidiaries will make the necessary connections with local managers and local networks of expertise difficult to achieve. Thus Japanese subsidiaries in the UK are in a period of prolonged uncertainty about their role in the future. These changes open up the necessity for a new agenda of research which goes beyond the Japanization approach and is concerned with the organization and management of Japanese multinationals in an era of global competition.     

The management of labour in Japanese manufacturing plants in China

While there is now considerable scholarship concerning Japanese management practices in their overseas production operations in Europe and North America, little is known about Japanese investment in other parts of the world, especially in Asia. This paper draws on on-going research into the nature and operations of Japanese manufacturing investments in China. The paper focuses on interviews primarily with Chinese managers in twenty plants in three locations within China, to examine their personnel polices and practices, and draw from this their overall industrial relations strategies. The main findings were, first, that, despite claims of cultural similarity between China and Japan, personnel management practices were generally not transferred from Japan to the plants in China. Second, practices that may appear as Japanese inspired were often informed by local practices. Third, there was diversity in the forms of practices used, indicating neither sophistication nor a singular recipe of management methods. Thus, the paper seeks to challenge proponents of Japanization who claim, essentially, that Japanese management techniques are predicated on the construction of particular forms of social relations around work that allow sophisticated, and integrated, production-management systems to function. Instead, depending on a complex interrelation between location industry and the history of each plant, managers sought to use various local and 'universal' (generic to capitalism) strategies and practices to control and utilize labour.     

BRITISH EMPLOYEES: RESPONDING TO JAPANESE MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHIES

Japan's industrial success has opened new opportunities in the area of business research and has generated particular interest in 'the Japanese way of doing things'. One specific area of concern has been that of job satisfaction and its relation to productive achievement. The study carried out in the United Kingdom involving one American, two ideally-matched Japanese subsidiaries and one British company, all involved in television manufacturing, refutes certain stereotypes about Japanese management. First, the study revealed that the two Japanese companies employed distinct personnel policies which were reflected in the differences in job satisfaction registered by their employees. Second, it showed that the paternalistic personnel policies instituted by one Japanese company were not preconditions for its high productive achievement but, selectively applied, generated appreciative feelings among its British work-force.     

Book reviews

A Restatement of Economic Liberalism Samuel Brittan Macmillan Japanese Style Management Transferred: The Experience of East Asia K. John Fukuda Routledge Japanese Management in America and Britain Donald Duncan Gordon Gower The Japanization of British Industry Nick Oliver Barry Wilkinson The Finances of British Trade Unions 1975–1985 Paul Willman Industrial Relations in Small Firms—Small Isn’t Beautiful Al Rainnie Routledge Managers of Discontent: Trade Union Officers and Industrial Relations Managers Diane Watson Routledge Recruitment and Selection in the Labour Market Paul Windolf and Stephen Wood Gower Safety at work: the limits of self-regulation Sandra Dawson, Paul Willman, Martin Bamford and Alan Clinton Debating Coal Closures: Economic Calculation in the Coal Dispute 1984–5 David Cooper and Trevor Hopper Helping the Unemployed Professional Roland Pearson and Anne Heyno Wiley Incompressible Unemployment John Naylor and Barbara Senior Avebury The Individual in the Economy: A Survey of Economic Psychology Stephen E. G. Lea, Roger M. Tarpy Financial and Economic Analysis of Enterprises Karl Hedderwick     

Japanisation? some early lessons from the British Post Office

This article examines the allegedly unique Japanese system of industrial relations by comparing it to the British Post Office before 1939–where methods very similar to contemporary Japanese forms existed. This has implications for arguments which criticise the viability of successfully introducing the Japanisation of industry.     

ENGINEERS,MANAGEMENT AND WORK ORGANIZATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERS' WORK ROLES IN BRITISH AND JAPANESE ELECTRONICS FIRMS*

Many commentators have attributed the poor performance of British manufacturing to the ‘under-representation’ of engineers in management, and have proposed policies for bringing more engineers into management so as to develop a technologically oriented management culture. This paper argues that the under-representation of engineers in management is a symptom not the root cause of the problem, which lies in the split between technical and managerial expertise at the enterprise level. Based on a comparative analysis of engineers’ work roles and the relationship between technical and managerial functions in British and Japanese electronics firms, the paper argues that the mechanistically structured organization systems in the British firms generate a vertical polarization between technical and managerial roles, inhibit knowledge sharing and lead to the gross under-utilization of engineers in product development. A technologically oriented management cannot simply be achieved by getting more engineers into management. It requires, instead, organizational restructuring and changes in work practices to enable a better integration between technical and managerial expertise.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Privatisation and Employment Relations: The Case of the Water Industry Julia O'Connell Davidson Mansell The Trade Union Question in British Politics Robert Taylor Trade Union Behaviour, Pay Bargaining and Economic Performance Robert J. Flanagan, Karl Ove Moene and Michael Wallerstein Dock Strike: Conflict and Restructuring in Britain's Ports Peter Turnbull, Charles Woolfson and John Kelly Avebury/Gower Building the union: Skilled Workers and Anglo-Gaelic Immigrants in the Rise of the UAW Union Business: Trade Union Organisation and Financial Reform in the Thatcher Years P. Willman, T. Morris and B. Aston Power and Profit: Politics, Labour and Business in South Africa Duncan Innis, Matthew Kentridge, Helene Perold, (Eds.) Japanization At Work John Bratton Retraining - not Redundancy: Innovative approaches to industrial restructuring in Germany and France Gerhard Bosch International Institute for Labour Studies Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Great Britain (2nd Ed.) Bob Hepple and Sandra Fredman Industrial Law (5th edition) I T Smith; John C Wood Labour Law: Management Decisions and Workers' Right     

The take-up of human resource management by mainstream companies: key lessons from research

Drawing upon a major British study involving over 300 interviews in fifteen case organizations from the private and public sectors, this paper draws out the essential elements of recent changes in industrial relations. In particular, it examines the significance of human resource management initiatives for the practice of industrial relations. The main thrust of the paper examines the ways, and the extent to which, mainstream organizations have transposed and absorbed concepts and practices from the highly publicized ‘lead cases’ into their own routines.

The central argument has three component elements: a whole array of managerial initiatives was launched in the period covered by the research; many of the more far-reaching of these were devised and driven from outside personnel or industrial relations management; cumulatively, these initiatives have impacted on the conduct of industrial relations.

A key concept which is identified and explored is that of HRM/IR ‘dualism’. This is the attempted bolting-on of HRM techniques and language alongside prevailing, albeit to some extent diluted, IR proceduralism. Many of the significant changes in labour management practices stemmed from initiatives taken by general managers, manufacturing directors and line managers. Transformative initiatives in the guise of culture change and structural change often carried profound implications for industrial relations even though these initiatives would not traditionally be regarded as part of industrial relations proper.     

A typology of shop stewards

The role of the shop steward in Australian industrial relations is probably as important as that of his British counterpart. In this article the author uses the three types of shop steward described by Miller and Form: management, union and employee oriented, to analyse a survey of 260 shop stewards in Western Australia.     

Workplace industrial relations in British Rail: change and continuity in the 1980s

This article compares the findings of a recent survey of workplace industrial relations in British Rail with those from one conducted in 1980. It is suggested that the changes observed may be unintended consequences of management policies rather than the planned outcome of explicit industrial relations strategies.     

日本制造业质量管理方式的特色

当今,日本工业产品尤其是家电、精密仪器、轿车以其卓越的品质拥有很高的国际市场份额。本文论述了日本式质量管理方式形成的过程,重点考察了以改善、提案制度、小集团活动为代表的日本企业全面质量管理的主要方法。     

National culture and its impact on the choice of managing director in international production: the case of foreign firms in Greece

The aim of this study is to determine whether attitudinal differences between British and Japanese managers observed in the workplace can be attributed to culture or to the employment system. The findings provided substantial support for attribution to the employment system. Cultural differences between British and Japanese managers were not as large as the cultural thesis claims. The stereotyped cultural characteristics of Japanese managers - high social orientation at work and unconditional priority of work over family - were observed only in limited groups such as managers on the shop floor or senior managers. Attitudinal differences in the workplace were not simply the consequence of cultural differences, but rather to be understood as rational behavioural responses. Both British and Japanese managers' attitudes were considered to be a rational response to their employment systems.     

Effects of diversification of career orientations on management systems in Japan

Until a few years ago, when compared to employees in countries of the Western World, Japanese employees entering an organization tended to have similar values and to stay in that organization rather than switching from one organization to another. That fact, however, has been changing. This article discusses the effects of this diversification of career orientations in young Japanese people. The main focus is on the effects of diversification on employment choice, the individual's decision-making as to which kind of employer to work for, and on the differing perceptions of management systems. © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Veblen's Theory of Institutional Change: An Explanation of the Deregulation of Japanese Financial Markets

A bstract In his 1915 essay "The Opportunity of Japan," Thorstein Veblen theorized that traditionai Japanese institutions would undergo evolutionary change as Japan exploited borrowed industrial technology and became integrated into the global business enterprise system. This article explains the recent liberalization of Japanese financial markets which followed Japan's rise to economic prominence within the context of Veblen's theory of institutional development of the enterprise system. The Japanese process of financial deregulation is reviewed, Veblen's predictions Japan are presented and an explanation provided for the liberalization of Japanese financial markets .     

Industrial efficiency and the West German worker

British industrial performance and the attitudes of workers have been unfavourably compared with Germany for more than 100 years. Much has been made of non-militant German workers, implying a deep-rooted psychology which harmonises the interests of workers and employers. This article argues that West German workers are as sceptical of employers' motivations as their British counterparts.     

Passages on the path to privatisation: the experience of British Steel

In 1988 public sector steelmaking in Britain was extinguished by the sale of all shares in British Steel plc. Given the politicised history of steel, the ease with which the company floated is surprising. This article suggests explanations which lie in the character of the principal industrial actors and the main political parties.     

日本管理与中国传统文化

文章探讨了日本管理与中国传统文化的关系。日本式企业管理是美国绝对利润原则与中国传统哲学的“合金文化”。中国的文化和美国的技术传到日本,被改造成“日本文化”,深深地根植于日本大地,并形成日本管理的特色,由此促进了日本经济和社会的发展。     

日本企业文化导入商务日语教学

中国近些年提高了国外企业到中国投资的门槛,在此背景下,来华投资的日企也提高了对商务日语人才的要求,希望其对日本企业文化有更多了解,以便更快更好地融入日企工作。本文从商务日语教学现状出发,结合日本企业人才需求状况,分析日本企业文化在商务日语教学中的重要性,探讨日本企业文化导入商务日语教学的对策。     

日本企业应对日元升值的对策与措施

本文从企业的视角出发,研究了日元升值情况,日元升值后,日本企业在产业结构、经营结构、国际贸易等方面受到较大影响,进而分析了企业在战略层面和经营层面所采取的应对策略。以期对中国企业应对汇率波动提供借鉴意义。