Non-Western Work Organization

Robert J. Baflon*

ABSTRACT In Chapter I, the Japanese setting is described: industrial society and industrial employment. Chapter II presents the Japanese work organization as organic with the appropriate value system and practices. Chapter III is about the man-machine relationships: operator and equipment, production system, and quality control. In Chapter IV, the man-man relationship is considered under two aspects: personnel management and decision-making. Finally the conclusion stresses once more the originality of Japanese model versus the Western model of work organization.

The Western experience has heavily colored the concepts and terms used in describing the organization of industrial wo~'k. This experience has been conveyed inside anGI outside the Western world through colonialism until World War II and today through international business. To this has been added the wide use of English as an international language. Most societies that want to participate somehow in the; international world must express themselves, their values, their traditions, their mores, in a medium that is not their own or has only become their own in the recent past. Communications have therefore come to rely more on the dictionary than on reality! Terms expressing Western concepts, themselves, resulting from Western experiences, are extensively used to express non-Western realities. Furthermore, these same terms are easily used to express the future, namely the direction in which progress is taking place. A universal standard has been apparently established once and for all--a western standard. What is not in accord with this standard is then considered as a deviation from the standard. A temporary one, it is hoped, to be resolved as soon as possible in the name of progress. Variations of the standard are also recognized and mostly expressed as national variations. For example, one compares France and Germany in terms of worker motivation, the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of contract consciousness and the Scandinavian countries in terms of the welfare state. The same common denominator, the nation, is used to compare, say, management in Japan and in South Korea or industrial policy in Singapore and in Taiwan. Using a universal standard in regard to things has many advantages that are rarely duplicated when it is used in regard to persons and human institutions. In the latter case, it is almost impossible to avoid value judgments. Variations are of the "better" or "worse" type. To compare an American and a Japanese word processor requires to call on some common (universal) standard, such as speed. To compare so-called American and Japanese managements is a different matter altogether. Is one going to take American management as the standard and Japanese management as a variation, if not a deviation? Or vice versa? Is one to stress that American management is but one variation within a broader Western standard, and in this context compare one variation, the American one, with another, be it the British or the French one, and extrapolate from there, as if the Japanese variation is somehow to be handled at the same level of the British or French variation?
" The author is Professor at Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. This paper was invited for the inaugural issue by lhe editors. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983 1

The purpose of this paper is to look for an alternative to the Western standard, though a Western language must be used out of necessity. English terms are used but they are given an additional dimension that would stand for more than, if not something different from, the experience that, in the first place, generated them. Take, for example, the common term, nation. Historians tell us that nationalism was launched in Europe by the Treaty of Westphalia (1648); that the United States started as a nation somewhat more than 200 years ago; that Germany and Italy arose during the last century, and that a number of nations in East Asia started as such during the course of this century. On that basis, it is misleading to speak of Japan as a "nation"! At least to the Japanese, Japan was their nation long before the term was invented in the West and exported outside of the West. It seems, therefore, prudent to avoid the qualification of "Japanese" in order to control somehow the Western ethnocentric dimension of the term, nation. In this paper, the qualification "non-Western" is preferred. Such an approach could open the Japanese experience to a more neutral perspective. When, for example, countries in East Asia look at Japan, it is to learn, not to become Japanese, but to become or to remain themselves in the current industrial world. Modernization is what they want, not Westernization, not even of a Japanese type. This is even more so at a time when the West's long-standing superiority, at least in economic terms, is badly shaken. Whether Japan has discovered the remedy for modern industrial ills remains an open question. Her achievements result from an alternative model that can largely be justified on its own terms, while recognizing its heavy debt to the West.

JAPANESE SETTING
It was under the impact of the West, that Japan, during the last century, adopted industrialization as the sine qua non condition for survival. The model was, of course, the West. The purpose, however, was not to become Western but to emulate the West. Japan's purpose and methods were perfectly expressed in the slogan, Wakon Yosai (Japanese soul, Western techniques). The type of industrial society that grew under the domestic impact of industrialization revealed, more and more as time went by, peculiarities not found in the original Western model. After a century and more, it appears that the "Japanese-ness" of Japan's current industrial society could be described as non-Western.

Industrial Society
Three characteristics are especially relevant: Japan is a country poor in natural resources but rich in human resources. m The Japanese have a high degree of homogeneity and thrive on their interdependence. The industrial identification of individual Japanese is not given by what they do but by where they work. In industrial terms, Japan is a country that, in Japanese eyes, is poor in resources except the human resource. As a late-comer on the industrial scene, 1 it could, if it wanted to, learn from Western experience; and the Japanese (the human resource) wanted to learn. Capitalizing on a traditional interest in education the country promoted universal education from the very start of its modernization. Consequently, Japan's industrialization, compared to that of Western model, did not consist so much in a better exploitation of natural resources (which Japan did not at any rate possess), than in a prodigious effort at the development of the human resource abundantly available domestically. Such a policy was more a social than a mere economic phenomenon.
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The human resource Japan called upon was and remains Japanese in the sense that it has been molded by the history of Japan. 2 The salient aspects of this homogeneity are as follows: A philosophy of life and society derived from Eastern tradition, in particular Confucianism; Continuity of this society as an organized entity from the dawn of its histor~r,3 Traditional high respect for learning manifested in a high level of literacy; 4 An overall value and work system that promotes interdependence among individuals and institutions. Present-day Japanese identify themselves, in industrial terms, not so much by what they do (i.e. their trade, skill, or occupation) than by where they work (i.e. their workplace). The Japanese term ba (place) enjoys a much more pregnant meaning than the Western term. The latter tends to remain abstract, places are interchangeable. Ba is eminently concrete in the sense that existentially there is no human being without a specific ba which indicates where he belongs in relation to other persons occupying their own ba. The Japanese term stands for more than a physical place; it has a deep social meaning.

Industrial Employment
Given the above characteristics of Japan's industrial society, it must be expected that industrial work is not employment in a Western sense. It was, however, only after World War II that a genuine style of employment came into its own. For sometime, Japanese intellectuals, in particular, were prone to describe it as a remnant of feudalism. In fact, it is a major innovation. It could be called more modern than the Western system, because it was institutionalized more recently. In Japan, eml~loyment is not formulated as a labor contract but as an employment relationship. This relationship is a knot of four strands: The workplace (shoku-ba) as source of industrial identification in one's own eyes and in the eyes of society; Permanent employment (shushin koyo) in the sense of long-term stability advocated by the enterprise as well as the employees; Seniority (nenbo), often referred to as the "merit of years" as the key for promotion and work compensation; Enterprise unionism (kigyo-betsu kumiai) whereby the organization of labor advocates the above three items. In other words, the norm for industrial employment is a life process. Industrial life starts with industrial birth (i.e. hiring at the time one joins the labor force upon school graduation). It continues by aging (i.e. the "merit of years") not necessarily in the sense that the senior is smarter than his junior, but that he has a longer, hopefully richer, experience of life2 Life ends by death (i.e. the mandatory age limit which is currently between 55 and 60) whereby the formal relationship comes to an end, though employment may well continue under a temporary form. Such is the norm of employment? It is general, but its application is determined by unavoidable circumstances. The norm is the practice in large enterprises, that are also unionized; in smaller enterprises, mostly not unionized, the norm is severely hampered by the economics of the firm.

JAPANESE WORK ORGANIZATION

In the Western industrial context, the organization comes first: because there is an enterprise, work can be expected. The enterprise is the cause; work (employment) is the effect. In the Japanese setting, on the contrary, it is work, in the
Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983 3

modern sense of industrial work, that is the cause, and organization is the effect. Because there is work to be done, the organization exists. This would be no different from society, itself an outcome of human activity. To express the contrast in a pregnant form, the Western paradigm of industrial work organiza{ion is "Resources + People", whereas the Japanese paradigm is "People + Resources". The first is an organization for work; it is functional. The second is an organization of life; it is organic.

Organic Work Organization

The enterprise is the corner-stone not only of Japan's modern economy but of Japan's society as well. Both, economy and society, are fused in the enterprise that, as an organization of industrial work, is an institution equally economic and social. The microcosm (the enterprise) is vitally similar to the macrocosm (society). This form of work organization is, therefore, to be appreciated not as some mechanical entity, but as a living organism. In such a case, survival is not the purpose; it is the essence. It means that, in economic terms, the essence, not the purpose, of work organization is value-added. Namely, the enterprise provides what otherwise would not be available and without which industrial society could not survive. The enterprise is the source of wealth on which industrial society survives and thrives. Through this value-added, this creation of wealth, the work organization is alive. To its participants it gives their raison d'etre as participants, as interdependent participants. In turn, the enterprise becomes as interdependent participant in society at large. Value added allows not only to pay salaries to managers and employees; it also provides them with the expected industrial security and satisfaction. Value-added allows the same to owners and investors in terms of returns on investment and social purposes. It does so for society in terms of the products and services it expects, and for the government in terms of taxes [Gregory, 1982]. It is no more and no less than the modern word for work, whereby the individual and society obtain their development. This organic nature of the enterprise makes it, on the one hand, particularistic, an inward-looking world, similarly to the living organism, and on the other hand, a participant in a large world that at the same time nourishes it and threatens it.

Appropriate Value System

There is no value system specifically industrial, in the sense that industrial man would somehow be of a type specifically conditioned to the requirements of an industrial environment. The Japanese in the street is not different from the Japanese in the factory or in the office; both have the same set of values. 7 The microcosm, however, makes some values stand out in clearer relief. Three values intimately inter related appear to summarize the style of human development supported by industrial work and its organization: community of fate, egalitarianism, and participation. 8 To the Japanese, Japan means essentially a community of fate? This value, at the micro level, is embodied in the enterprise, to which the commitment is economic as well as social and psychological. Exactly as the Japanese are born Japanese, commitment to the enterprise is not so much dependent on free choice than on necessity. Thus, the members of the industrial organization look upon the goals and interests of the individual and of the organization as being fundamentally in agreement. The survival of the organization enhances the chances for their own survival. Working for the organization, the members work for themselves. It is, consequently, imperative that the organization be flexible, not so much in its structure as in its process.
4 Asia Pacific Journal of Management. September t983

The inward-looking side of this community of fate requires a high dose of egalitarianism. This is also true of the macrocosm (society) where the overwhelming majority of the Japanese consider themselves as belonging to the middle class? In the enterprise, this value operates at two levels. At the collective level, the enterprise tries to minimize social and economic differences between social strata, though maintaining the difference resulting from formal education. A most effective way to minimize such differences is by maximizing communications between levels. This is done both intensively and extensively. At the individual level, the enterprise deems it counter-productive to stress individual differences in ability and performance to the detriment of teamwork. Participation may well sum up the two previous values; it simply accounts for the organic nature of the enterprise. Authority is not denied but it is diffused. So is responsibiility. Participation implies a constant flow of information throughout the organization. This explains why decision-making, which is understood in the West as an exercise of authority and power, is essentially a communication exercise in the Japanese industry.

Appropriate Practices
The organic nature of the enterprise and the values it calls upon is then expressed in a host of practices that are as many as the expressions of the life relationship prevailing in the workplace. For clarity sake, these practices can be grouped under three headings: work motivation, work administration, and work compensation. Work is not the purpose of the organization; it is the corporate reality itself. Motivation is not sought in work itself, in the activity whatever it is, but in the work environment, more specifically in the community of fate. Congeniality is thus paramount. The consequences of this attitude are striking in their contrast with general Western practice. - - Ownership of the enterprise is not an overriding consideration?' - - Training and development are essentially internal affairs for which the enterprise is most directly responsible) 2 - - Promotion is based on the years spent in the enterprise, t3 Egalitarian practices mark the work environment. In the factory, workers, engineers, and managers wear the same uniform and eat the same menu at a common canteen. In the office, the open-room system makes for constant participation by everybody in everything that goes on in the room and beyond. TM The superior is in direct and constant contact with his subordinates. Rather than being considered as the source of authority and responsibility, he is the person holding the "beehive ' together.

Work Administration
Japanese enterprises are characterized as internal labour markets. Intra-company mobility is extensive; it may even include subsidiaires and affiliated companies. All personnel matters are centralized in the Personnel Department [Inohara, 1977]. As a rule, no manager has the power to hire. Recruiting is done by the enterprise (i.e. by its Personnel Department). Job descriptions have little relevance, because they tend to isolate one job (i.e. one individual) from another, and to interfere with the generalist approach to training. What is preferred and actively promoted is versatility in duties consonant with the organic nature of the enterprise and the central role of the Personnel Department. Working time is not perceived as clock time, say, from 9 to 5: "life" does not extend only from 9 to 5. Overtime, paid and unpaid, is common. The pace of work itself is not truly "clock-wise". Since it is group performance that is sought, the pace is not set in regard to any Asia Pacific Journal of Management,September 1983 5

individual in particular. All employees are to be informed about external and internal conditions, so that they can set the corporate pace accordingly. Paid holidays, when they are not concomitant with plant and office closure, are rarely taken according to individual convenience and still rarely taken in full.

Work Compensation
The salary system with its built-in consideration for the "merit of years" is one more manifestation of the organic nature of the enterprise [Ballon, 1982]. The system is the same for supervisory and non-supervisory employees. At the upper level, it excludes corporate officers, and at the lower level, temporary employees. It must be noted, however, that if a salary squeeze is required, it will start at the directors' level and reach salaried employees and hourly workers last. The salary system, per force, is complex and thereby flexible. It always includes a major portion of work compensation in the form of deferred payments (e.g. the seasonal allowances and the retirement benefit). In fact, the system appears much like a life-income paid out in regular installments, rather than an immediate quid-pro-quo between performance and payment determined by contract. This life-income is then largely decided by considerations that have little to do with "work" itself, as would be the case with job evaluation and job rates. The work compensation package includes also all sorts of fringes, some pecuniary, others not. Thus, the cost of commuting to and from the working premises is refunded; housing loans in many forms are provided, besides dormitories for bachelors and company housing for families; subsidized company stores; sea/ mountain rest resorts for the employee and his family; subsidized clinics and childcare centers are common. Such fringes are, of course, not expected in small companies, though some associations of small firms, such as an association of neighborhood stores, may provide them to some extent.

MAN-MACHINE RELATIONSHIP
According to the paradigm, "People + Resources", the equipment used by Japanese enterprises is viewed as needed to enhance the human potential. In a sense, industrial development is not capital-intensive, as generally assumed in the West, but rather labor-intensive, i.e. the development of the human resource, the constant upgrading of the labor content. Is

Worker and Equipment

As often pointed out, Japan R & D appears to be better at the "D" than at the "R". Whatever the validity of this assertion, it is a fact that process technology has become the hallmark of Japan's industrial challenge. In this context, "process" is equated with "work", the essence of the Japanese enterprise not by choice but by necessity. To this effect, the man-machine relationship is relevant. Process design: If process design is understood as work design, the first requirement is that all those participating in the process be involved in its design. Floor managers, engineers, and machine operators not only wear the same work uniform, they are also found where the work is done together on the shopfloor. And it is together, normally including union representatives, that their work is designed and constantly redesigned. Instruction manuals are not the proper way to handle the symbiosis of man and machine, because they would be construed as excluding operators from the design and redesign phases. On-the-job training is the real means of instruction, or better, of development. This assumes of course, a general high level of literacy. It is done on a continuous basis with the expectation that operators themselves contribute to changes in the process as much as they do to execution of the process.
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Ideally speaking, the machine should be the brain-child of the operators with the help of engineers. Not surprisingly, operators also take care of preventive maintenance, as well as cleanliness of their work site. Their work is multi-function and multi-machine. What happens when operators make a mistake? Mistakes are considered as a legitimate aspect of "learning by doing", and a price to pay for the development of the process itself. Equipment: Much of the new equipment required by the constant improvement of the production process is developed and constructed in house or, what largely amounts to the same in the Japanese context, by some affiliated or related company. TM This permits easy incorporation of suggestions from the floor, if readymade equipment is purchased, it soon becomes what is commonly referred to as "improved" equipment. Operators remove general-purpose fixtures and contribute numerous small adjustments, tn other words, the new equipment is put into their hands, and they show with pride what they can do to it, not only with it. Consequently, a substantial corps of mechanical engineers is kept on the payroll. A common justification given by management is as follows: "In times of boom, we will not be the only ones to look for new equipment. To avoid delays that may affect competitiveness, we better have in-house capacities to construct it. On the other hand, in times of depression, it is more vital than ever to improve the production processes. This is better done in cooperation with our own people." Another consequence is that engineers are rarely found in their offices: they are found on the shopfloor. It is on the same floor that blueprints are kept and read not only by technicians, but by the operators themselves. To some extent, as expressed in the fact that all wear the same work uniform, the Japanese enterprise treats the operator as engineer, and the engineer as a consultant to the operator. Operation, ratio: Foreign observers have often noticed that in Japanese factories there appears to be little compunction about leaving equipment idle. The standard explanation is their peculiar system of corporate financing relying heavily on debt. The more immediate reason is related to the "People + Resources" paradigm. It is generally appreciated that the cost of man is higher than that of equipment. '7 More to the point is that to keep man waiting because of the machine is not only expensive, it is also psychologically down-grading. If value-added is the raison d'etre of the work organization, waiting time resu!ting from the needed adjustments of the equipment must be reduced to a minimum. As active participants in the enterprise, operators know as well as management that equipment is depreciated. Another practical reason for idle equipment is the importance attached to preventive maintenance. As mentioned earlier, it is the responsibility of the operators themselves, tt adds to their sense of control over the equipment that the enterprise (the community of fate) has entrusted to them.

Production System
A widely known production system in Japanese industry is the so-called Toyota Production System. It brings together man and machine in a manner eminently suited to the Japanese-like work organization. It distinguishes four operations in the production process: processing, inspection, transportation and storage. Of these four operations, only the first one, processing, contributes value-added. Consequently, the three other operations are to be reduced or eliminated, because they are mere motions that add no value to the product. Processing: Much waiting time, that reduces value-added, is required for adjusting equipment. This is especially the case when, in order to respond to market requirements, greater flexibility is desired in the process, as in the case of small-lot
Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983 7

production. This reduction/elimination of waiting time is expected from mechanization and standardization, to which in-house design and construction of equipment are highly conducive. Since idle time for a man is more costly than for equipment, multi-machine operation is standard. Idle machine time is used for retooling and preventive maintenance. Remote control and automatic stop are, among others, developments to which operators are the first contributors. Inspection: The need for in-process inspection must be reduced/eliminated because they do not contribute to value-added. The real problem is not to find the defects but to prevent them. The logical conclusion, to which operators contribute directly, is that inspection should not be by man: it should be automatic, built into the equipment. If a defective product is discovered, it should not simply be removed from the line: the production line must be stopped until the cause of the defect is corrected. Transportation: In-process transportation must also be reduced/eliminated, since it is mere motion with no value-added. The principle of "one-piece flow" is incorporated in the plant layout, eliminating, to the extent possible, segmentation in various shops and in machine layout. As a principle, all transportation is mechanical. Storage: Storage in the production process must also be reduced/eliminated as an expected result from drastic reduction of waiting time for adjusting the equipment. Here the principle is that only the part that went out of storage is the part to be replaced. The now famous Kanban system aims precisely at eliminating storage for not contributing to value-added. Value-added cannot be limited to physical production. The implications of the Toyota or similar production systems extend well beyond the shopfloor. It is not enough that the product be manufactured; it must be sold in the market. By stressing value-added on the production line, machine operators and all others on the shopfloor are also made fully aware of market requirements. Production is understood in marketing terms by production engineers and no less by production workers. Slogans and banners throughout the plant remind everyone of the one-piece flow principle and of quality consciousness. "If the engine is machined in the morning, the car drives on the road that same day." "The operator in the morning is the driver in the afternoon." "The end-user does not buy a batch of products--He buys one unit and he wants it perfect." "Zero-defect is not a technical requirement. It is market requirementt"

Quality Control
Quality control (QC) circles in Japan are often credited to the work ethic of the production workers. At least equal credit must be given to their managers. In fact, all the credit should go to the enterprise itself. Quality as a market requirement is at the origin of QC circles. Obviously, quality is an important characteristic of the product, tts very importance does not allow it to be entrusted exclusively to some "important" person, such as the QC engineer or QC inspector. The implication would then be that the importance of quality puts it beyond the reach of the operators! The Japanese work organization considers that quality is the responsibility of everybody, but more specifically of those who are the first to notice the defect or its possibility, namely production workers. With proper training and support, they are the ones who will prevent the defect. Quality is not so much a technical problem as a human problem. It requires up-+ 8 Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983

grading worker competence by direct involvement in the design of the process with the help of engineers and managers, in other words, with the support of the entire work organization. In this sense, as mentioned earlier, quality is first of all a more labor-intensive process. This is why, already two decades ago, Japanese industry started to implement company-wide quality control. (CWQC). It perceived very rapidly that QC circles for production workers only were bound to fail. Any campaign aiming at establishing QC circles does not start on the shopfloor, but in the boardroom, and remains anchored there. Today, on the basis of that experience, the goal has been broadened to total quality control (TQC), namely quality control upstream and downstream of the enterprise itself [Kobayashi, 1981]. Upstream, it involves the parts and components suppliers, who, in close cooperation with the assembler, are expected to deliver their goods "Just In Time" (JIT) and, thus, without inspection upon delivery. Technically, JIT excludes the practice of acceptable quality levels (AQL) that relies on human inspection. Instead, Japanese assemblers rely on parts per million (PPM) based on automatic testing. In fact, the concept of cooperation is not strong enough to describe this relationship between suppliers and assemblers. What is involved is outright interdependence, the Japanese value par excellence. Such suppliers are called subcontractors, but the old image of the Japanese subcontractor exploited by his contractor is being changed. Downstream TQC involves the distribution channels, equally on the basis of interdependence. To use terms familiar in marketing, the Japanese strategy tends to give greater weight than is current among non-Japanese businesses to the PUSH (distributors pushing the product onto the market) than to the PULL (consumers pulling the product through channels). One contributing factor to such strategy has been the traditional emphasis on the corporate image rather than on product image. Reliability of supply is thus a characteristic supporting product quality. As a result, distributors, if not also end-users themselves, are considered to be direct participants in the entire process of product development. At the same time, aftersales services are generally looked upon as the responsibility of the manufacturer. '8
MAN-MAN RELATIONSHIP

Where the paradigm, in contrast to "Resources + People" adopted as a matter of choice, is "People 4- Resources" adopted as a matter of necessity, work organization gives priority to the man-man relationship as a vital ingredient of value-added. The following have been observed on Japanese shopfloors: - - Production workers' high level of general education and technical training is acknowledged. '9 - - Technicians and engineers are available on the shopfloor to support the initiatives of production workers and help them to achieve greater value added. Floor managers are where they belong: not in an office but on the floor? Managers, including most top management, have at some time in their career worked on the factory floor?' -Communication channels are kept as short as possible. Of course, actual behavior is not always expected behavior. Such expectations must be kept alive if the organization is to be organic. To put it bluntly: to survive, the organization has to ceaselessly nurture the man-man relationship, the human dynamics of the workplace. What is specifically at stake here is not the management of the human resource, but its development. Human resources are managed where the corporate context, as is traditional in
Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983 9

the West, is one of ownership of the means of production by investors and their representatives. There management determines what, when, and how work is to be performed. As a consequence the corporation is a management structure set up to get work done. Management is the enterprise. Labor is hired by this management for a specific task with working conditions contractually decided. Labor has then to be managed. Reactions to this situation are multiple. Some deny all validity to private property. Labor protects itself by organising independently from (if not against) the enterprise. Participation must be enforced, as is the case of so-called industrial democracy in Europe. At the day-to-day level, the conflict open or hidden is between those who decide what has to be done (but do not do it themselves) and those who are told what to do (and, if all goes well, do it). No wonder that automation is also advocated as a solution to this problem by simply getting the work done without labor. There is, however, an alternative to the management of human resources. Where organization is organic, the one who decides the work has no practical meaning unless he is accompanied by the one who does the work: they are inter-dependent: A decision without its implementation is not a practical, real decision. Collective survival is the ultimate motivator. It cannot, however, be expected from competition among individuals or institutions, but from competition cum cooperation. In the workplace, the flow of information-emission and reception, upward and downward, qualitative and quantitativc is constant. The glue of the man-man relationship is not the physical and other assets entrusted to the workforce but the information network of which they are a vital part. If "information Society" or "Knowledge-Intensive Industries" are the challenge of the very near future, the corporate paradigm of "People + Resources" is fully adequate, if not also indispensable.

Personnel Relationship
The prime task of managers is leadership, but the Japanese style is different. In olden times, the image of a leader leading his troops into battle was the following one: He was not expected to be found on the forefront of his troops. He would be seated at some prominent place wherefrom to look over the battle field. From there, he issued instructions, was able to judge the valour of his men, individually and collectively, and thus decide their reward accordingly, if the battle was won. The western image of leadership is that the leader stands ahead of the group to lead, and pulls it in the direction he himself determines. The Japanese image is rather that of a leader inside the group, and contributing to the direction in which the group is moving. What the Japanese group expects from its leader is accessibility. He must be receptive, and thus listen, to ideas and suggestions by subordinates, while coaching them to greater involvement with the group. For that purpose, he encourages them to make their best efforts, 22 not so much in terms of individual performance than as a contribution to group performance. He is then careful not to formulate goals in a manner that would inhibit their initiative. 23 The criterion for managerial promotion recognizes, of course, technical competence, but much more importantly, this brand of leadership from within the group. The test of efficient management is not sought at the top of the hierarchy (in terms of responsibility to owners). Instead it is found among middle managers, in particular at the level of section chief (kacho), where managers face people rather than financial and other data (i.e. where decisions become real by being executed).
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The difference in leadership behavior is compounded by differences in subordinate behavior. Since the industrial organization is a life proposition, the natLfre of industrial work is modified. The particular job of a particular individual does not truly exist: job descriptions are of little, if any, relevance. On the contrary, what exists is the task to be performed by the work group of which the individual is a member. "Participation" is the key term: to participate in the task of the work group. Job demarcation is regarded as highly counter-productive and detrimental to on-the-job training, the "learning by doing" prevailing in Japanese industry.

Enterprise Unionism
Another strand of the employment "relationship" is enterprise unionism, a style of labor organization that emerged after World War II. Today, it is the form of over 90 percent of the labor unions? ~ The membership is exclusively composed of all regular employees in a given enterprise, up to the level of section chief. For example, when a manufacturing company is unionized, the union comprises blue-collar as well as white-collar employees; if it is a university: professors, technicians and, say, cleaning staff; in a bank: bank clerks and cafeteria personnel. The principle is "One enterprise, one union." If the company goes bankrupt, it is the end of the union. In other words, like everybody else, the enterprise union has a survival stake in value-added. This is not to say that the union loses all specificity. An image may convey the point. A coin has two different sides. Similarly, the company is composed of management and labor. Their interests are different, but what exists actually is not two sides of a coin, but the coin itself, (i.e. the enterprise). Whereas the adversative relationship between management and labor, common in Western industry, tends to tear the enterprise asunder, in Japan, the two sides tend to be convergent, again not by choice, but by necessity. The enterprise union is then, one more instrument for the development of human resources. It supports automation for the sake of its own survival, while representing its specific interest in the employment security of its members. Automation is the current, modern means to upgrade its members. The union, also provides a standard consideration for managerial promotion, looking at the performance and reputation of the employee as union leader, Not surprisingly, one out of six corporate directors is currently a former union officer. ~s

Decision-making
Decision-rnaking in Japanese industry is often described as decision-making by consensus. This is a very vague term. As stated earlier, Japanese managers are fully aware that it is not the decision that affects reality; it is its implementation. This two-step approach to reality, a decision followed by its execution, is suspect to them and does not fit their standard behavior. Ideally, they seek a one-step approach: execution. The consensusby subordinates is not about a decision proffered by the superior; it is about implementation with the support of the superior. In different words, consensus does not mean conceptual agreement by individual subordinates to a decision as announced by the superior--this is not required in the Japanese corporate context. Consensus means actual participation in execution by the group composed of superior and subordinates. Decision-making is then not the appropriate term; information processing would be more appropriate. Using by comparison the statement quoted earlier that, in R & D, the Japanese appear better at the "D" than at the "R", it could be stated that similarly they are better at execution than at decision. Whereas the Western manager is concerned about making a decision, (i.e. providing a solution to the problem on hand and moving the organization so that action follows), his Japanese counterpart sticks with the problem and endeavors to share it with his
Asia Pacific Journal of Management. September ; 983 11

subordinates. This is done as long as needed, one could say, until the point in time where a decision imposes itself. The result is then not a choice among possible alternative actions, but essentially a reaction imposing itself. The ideal decision for the Japanese manager is the one that is imposed by necessity, namely a reaction that happens without need for a decision. The one-step approach is effective, but is it efficient? The position of the Japanese manager is not much different from that of the Westerner, who has, at any rate, to wait for implementation to know whether his decision was efficient or not. What is paramount, therefore, is that the entire organization, not only its decisionmakers, perceives reality as it actually imposes itself. This requires elaborate information to be shared by all participants. The relatively short channels of communication allow ready face-to-face contacts and innumerable meetings are held. As stated one day by an advertising expert: "The message is a massage!" CONCLUSION A major characteristic of the Western model of work organization and industrialization is its apparent exportability, admittedly much aided by the, long centuries of colonialism and today by a multiplicity of circumstances, such as the impact of Western multinational corporations, the surge toward nation-building in developing countries, the financial and technical aid provided by developed nations, and many more. To a large extent, macro considerations tend to overwhelm the adoption of the instruments of industrialization. At the micro level, the business executive is often left, in regard to work organization, with a problem reminiscent of the quadrature of the circle. There is a square made familiar by the mass of West-originated, in particular U.S.-originated literature on all possible aspects of business, using English terms that even in Continental Europe know no proper local equivalent and remain expressed in English, such as management and marketing. Then there is the circle, no less familiar but much less explicit, of local values, attitudes, and practices, if not also prejudices. The problem for the business executive in non-western economies is to reconcile through the work organization, the Western, European, and/or American, square and the local circle, Chinese or Malay or Indian, whatever. To his benefit, it may be helpful to appreciate that he could work with other squares, maybe less alien, if not also more effective. A non-Western square like the one in the process of elaboration in Japan, could provide, if not a perfect fit, at least a closer approximation. What speaks in favor of this square is that On many scores, it integrates the best elements of the Western square, and throughout remains open to any possible improvement devised in the West; It rejects, however, the adversarial context promoted by Western industrial culture, and many elements rooted in Western-like behavior and history; It calls most explicitly on interdependence between social partners in the enterprise by cultivating information processing to the maximum currently possible.
Footnotes

1. The benefits that accrued to Japan for being a late-comer in industrialization are described in Dore (1973). Such specific comparative studies are still few (rid. Takezawa and Whitehill, 1981 ). 2. Foreign labor does not exist in Japan. There are only 700,000 non-Japanese currently living in Japan, of whom 600,000 are Korean descendants, the result of the annexation of Korea in 1910. 3. This is exemplified by the fact that until 1945 Japan had never been invaded over its two thousand or so years of existence. t 2 -- Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983

4. The style of learning, however, was not and is not to the detriment of respect for manual work. Rather than learning that would promote dilettantism, it is learning-by-doing that earns respect. 5. In the family, the father does not have to be smarter than his children but he certainly is older. 6. Western industry knows a key norm: "Equal pay for equal work." It would be impossible to understand the western work compensation system without a clear appreciation of this norm, though in practice it is not always carried out. Similarly, the Japanese employment cannot be understood without a clear appreciation of so-called lifetime employment, preferably called stable or permanent employment. 7. In recent years, the formal perception of an appropriate value system and appropriate practices has greatly benefited from Japanese experiences overseas. The "human" side of Japanese overseas investments in developed as well as developing countries is studied with great zeal by Japanese and foreign experts. In Japan, such studies are often subsidized in one form or another. They are now being reflected in a progressively clearer understanding of what is and is not Japanese. 8. These values have, of course, a high emotional content, in particular as slogans. To that effect, posters, badges, songs, etc, are profusely used in the work place. In case of industrial disputes, the labor union does the same with even greater profusion. Recently, the development of the appropriate value system and practices is formulated in the expression, Quality of Working Life. [vid. Takezawa et al., 1982]. 9. It is to be remembered again that the western notion of nation is not adequate, because it is too recent and too directly determined by Europe's historical experience. Japanese are born Japanese. Since 1945, about 70,000 aliens have obtained Japanese citizenship, of whom about 60,000 are Korean descendants. t0. tn postwa~ Japan, public opinion surveys by the Office of the Prime Minister, Tokyo, have revealed, over and over again, that the large majority of the Japanese consider themselves as belonging to the middle class: almost 90 percent since 1965. 11. This removes a major ideologicai obstacle be it expressed as Capitalism vs. Socialism or whatever similar phraseology. The overriding consideration is value-added. If obtained, it benefits everybody associated with the enterprise: investors, managers, employees, suppliers, customers, and the government. 12. On-the-job training and job rotation are the idea} means for training and development besides being direct contributors to congeniality. The enterprise invests heavily in the training of a generalist rather than a specialist, in the sense that the employee should be adept at all the skills needed for the specialized task assigned to the workgroup. 13. Experience credited to the "merit of years" is valued higher than technical expertise. Such experience is with people rather than things. 14. A standard layout would be six desks lined up two by two facing each other, with two telephones to be answered by anybody free at the time. A seventh desk, in continuity with the other six, is for the head of tl~at workgroup. In the same room, there may be 5, 10, 20 similar clusters. If the administration of an entire department is thus assembled in one room, the department head has his own desk, somewhat set apart, in the room itself. Whether such office layout and sit other egalitarian practices make the work place a happier one, is debatable. It has been observed that the Japanese employee does not complain less than his western counterpart. He complains rather more. The reason is that he expects so much more. Say that the western worker expects 10 units of satisfaction and obtains only 5. He will complain about minus 5. The Japanese employee, on the other hand, expects 100 units of satisfaction, and obtains only 50. He complains about minus 50, ten times more than his western counterpart. 15. A bitter source of ideological conflict appears embodied in Western accounting, to wit the balance sheet. Equipment is listed in the right column under ASSETS, but people (wages and salaries) are listed in the left column under LIABILITIES. Machines are corporate assets; people are corporate liabilities! Of course, Japanese industry follows by and large the principles of international financial disclosure, but financial statements tend.to be read with quite different eyes [vid. Ballon et aL, 1974]. 16. The description here is about industrial machines. It appears, however, that Japan is crossing the threshold of office automation on a grand scale. All the experiences gathered on the shopfloor will be most helpful in the administrative offices. 17. A so-called "machine operation ratio" of 5 to 1 is often quoted: the cost of man is 5, compared to the cost of I for the machine. It is, therefore, 5 times more expensive to keep man waiting than the machine [vid. Shingo, t981]. The following description of the production system is largely taken from that source~ [See also Schonberger, 1982]. 18. Warranty time for products sold has little relevance in the Japanese market. The end-user feels that as long as he uses the product, the responsibility of the manufacturer remains, 19. Their role is not to operate the equipment following instructions out of a manual or out of the mouth of supervisors. Their function is to see that the equipment contributes properly to valueadded. To that effect, they participate as much as maintenance.

Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September t983

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20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

Suggestions are countless. A comparative survey of suggestion systems in the United States (1978) and Japan (1980) reveals that the rate of participation by employees is 14 percent and 54 percent respectively; the number of suggestions per worker, 0.15 and 12.82; the rate of suggestions adopted, 24 percent and 72 percent. More striking is the average reward per suggestion: 30,530 yen in the United States and 466 yen in Japan (Japan Productivity Center, 198t). They orchestrate the cooperation of technicians and operators by sharing ail possible information, and on that basis arrive at a common understanding of the best, or at least a better and more satisfactory production schedule. Moreover, the labor union participates in the elaboration of this schedule. So have most administrative and sales personnel as well. To praise and reward best efforts is a most common practice. For example, the past performance was rated 80, a new target was set at 100, and the ensuing performance is now 90. In all probability, a western manager would rate 90 as minus 10, whereas the Japanese manager rates it as plus 10. because he credits the target of 100 as contributing to a plus 10 performance. Lewis Austin [1975] has attempted by in-depth interviews to determine the differences in approach of a good or bad superior and a good or bad subordinate. The rate of labor organization has slowly declined over the years; currently it is at about 30 percent [Ballon, 1983, and Hanami, 1979]. This is according to a survey of large companies listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, conducted by the Japan Federation of Employers Associations (NIKKEIREN) in 1978 and repeated in 1981).

REFERENCES
Austin, L. Saints and Samurai: The Political Culture of the American and Japanese Elites. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975. Ballon, R.J., Industrial Relations in Japan. Business Series No. 93. Tokyo: Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, t983. _ _ Salaries in Japan: The System. Business Series No. 91. Tokyo: Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, 1982. _ _ . Tomita, I. and Usami, H., Financial Reporting in Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha international, 1974. Dora, R., British Factory-Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity of Industrial Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Gregory, G., The Logic of Japanese Enterprise, Business Series No. 92. Tokyo: Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, 1982. Hanami, T., Labor Relations in Japan Today. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1979. Inohara, H., The Personnel Department in Japanese Companies. Business Series No. 63. Tokyo: Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, 1977. Kobayashi, Y., Quafity Control in Japan: The Case of Fuji Xerox. Business Series No. 81. Tokyo: Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, 1981. Schonberger, RA., Japanese Manufacturing Techniques: Nine Hidden Lessons on Simplicity. New York: The Free Press, 1982. Shingo, S., Study of "Toyota"Production System from Industrial Engineering Viewpoint. Tokyo: Japan Management Association, 1981. Takezawa, S., et al. Improvements in the Quafity of Working Life in Three Japanese Industries. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1982. _ _ . and Whitehill, A.M, Work Ways: Japan and America. Tokyo: The Japan Institute of Labour, 1981.

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Asia Pacific Journal of Management, September 1983