New challenges for Japanese multinationals: Is organization adaptation their achilles heel?

As the number, size, and complexity of Japanese multinational companies' (MNCs) overseas operations increase, many of them have begun to realize that they face some fundamental and difficult organizational challenges. Drawing on research undertaken with several large and successful Japanese MNCs, the authors define the nature and source of some of these organizational challenges, and describe some approaches that can be taken to resolving them. The article starts with a brief assessment of the traditional organizational capabilities and existing managerial approaches of Japanese companies, comparing them to the emerging challenges in the international environment. Then, after identifying some constraints and barriers to an effective response to the new demands, the authors propose a series of actions to overcome the problems.     

Prometheus unbound

Professor Nicholas Onuf argued in the February 1984 issue of Futures that those participating in the revival of interest in long waves of economic activity had generally failed to relate their analyses to the debate on growth spawned by Limits to Growth. The challenge is taken up in this article, which relates the two debates in terms of the role of technology in long-term growth and cycles; changes in ‘technological paradigm’ are seen as a major feature of each successive growth cycle. The article finally discusses the effects of paradigm change on employment and investment, and confronts the central issue of Onuf's paper—the social and political effects of the micro-electronics revolution.     

Significant Issues for the Future: Some Additional Perspectives

The rational elements of management dominated the questions raised by our Editorial Board members in the previous issue of JPIM when they offered their ideas in, "Significant Issues For the Future of Product Innovation." In this article, the discussion is continued with some other Board members but this time the human side of managements gets its due attention. The issues presented here add to the picture of complexity that is the reality of product innovation but they also may provoke the thinking that can lead to an improvement in management performance.     

Interstate banking and the payments system

Interstate banking will improve the efficiency of the payments system. This will occur because the number of handlings for multiple-bank payments (transit items) will fall and because some multiple-bank payments will be transformed into single-bank payments (on-us items). These effects are simulated using data on the current cross-section relationship between banking structure and check clearing patterns in a multinomial logit model. The Federal Reserve, which currently processes almost one-third of all checks, is predicted to lose 43 to 60 percent of its market share. The annual impact is expected to be gradual, however, since interstate banking will be phased in and because of offsetting growth in the total check clearing market.     

Market analysis in regional economic development: The Bradford case

The application of market analysis procedures to problems of regional economic development has long been neglected. This paper presents a framework for regional economic analysis and then proceeds to a detailed examination of the City of Bradford in Yorkshire within that framework. The authors worked for a period of four years on behalf of the Bradford Area Development Association (BADA) to identify ways in which economic growth within the City could be stimulated. Eight major studies were undertaken which explored both the extant structure of Bradford's industry and resources and its external economies, and the most viable directions for growth.The studies led BADA to the conclusion that, although new employers could be attracted to the area, the greatest effort should be applied to accommodate, facilitate and encourage the growth of indigenous companies. The strategy which was evolved within the City led to the establishment of an Industrial Officer within the City Hall; to the founding of a regional Merchant Bank; to a determined series of political lobbies to get the City's problems aired within the Planning Region and at Ministry level in London; and to much more besides.By late 1973, when the City of Bradford will be absorbed into a Metropolitan District within the Metropolitan County of West Yorkshire, and when BADA is to be formally would up, a considerable record of success can be reported. These achievements must be seen against the background of sluggish economic growth within the U.K. economy over the period.