| NOTA |
(★)(This book ranks among the most pessimistic looks at Japanese management written by Japanese. The authors question the value of traditional Japanese corporate practices amid today´s circumstances and debate whether Japanese management can change. Japanese corporations, say the authors, embody Japan´s outdated aim of catching up with the West. The slogan ´Promote Industry to Serve the Country,´ initially through military, then through economic means --especially exports-- permeates corporate thinking. Resistance to change thus manifests itself most acutely among Japanese corporate management. This book acknowledges that management helped Japan catch up with the West, but it asks what management can do to serve Japan in the future. It identifies and examines the changes facing present-day Japanese corporations and discusses how management must adapt to deal with them. The authors hoped for signs that management would handle the problems of the post-bubble economy. Instead, Japanese corporations ´appear´, they maintain, ´to have fallen steadily into a crisis of management under . . . an extremely strong yen that is widely at variance with the principle of purchasing power parity.´ Companies that adapted readily during the oil crises are today inert. Exceptions exist, but few large Japanese firms have initiated significant reforms. Once vital corporate functions have become ritualized, and production has been sacrificed to bureaucracy. Japanese corporations, the authors maintain, are in decline. There is hope --among middle management-- but the authors are skeptical whether, beset by problems, Japanese management can participate in Asia´s enocomic growth. ◆Tsuchiya Moriaki was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1934. He served as professor in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo --his alma mater-- until 1995. Currently he is professor at Tokyo Keizai University and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo. Konomi Yoshinobu was born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1944. After graduating from Keio University, he worked for Mitsubishi Corporation and then Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Since 1972, he has served as lecturer at Keio University Graduate School of Business Administration. Currently he works as a management consultant.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
印刷用ページ