A Cultural Perspective on Japanese Strengths and Weaknesses in Operations Management

概要

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Nowadays, concepts such as "lean" and "six sigma," which originated from Japanese manufacturing practices, prevail all over the world as leading edge paradigms in operations management. Practices such as these drove Japan to the top of the IMD international competitiveness ranking around 1990, but Japan's ranking has since fallen and is recently only in the top 30. Based on an international cultural comparison using Hofstede's cultural scores, this article claims that these strengths and weaknesses may come from Japan's culture, in which there is high uncertainty avoidance for objects and time, and which is quite different from not only Western countries but also other Asian countries. This hypothesis is examined by citing our research results regarding cross-national comparisons of CS and SCM performance. Through these considerations, interpretation is provided regarding phenomena currently occurring in Japanese industry considered to be side-effects of high product quality, such as Galapagos and quality homeostasis. Finally, a proposal is made regarding how Japan can overcome the problem and create new quality concepts by taking advantage of its relativistic culture not fixed to a single ideology or religion.
2010-08-15