Японская управленческая культура: принципы и эволюция

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Japanese management culture refers to working philosophies or methods in Japan. It included concepts and philosophies such as just in time, kaizen and total quality management.

The Japanese term "hourensou" (also rendered as "Ho Ren So") refers to frequent reporting, touching base and discussing – important attributes that are said to characterize collaboration and information flow within effective Japanese corporate culture. Hou' stands for 'Houkoku', the Japanese word for 'reporting'. 'Ren' comes from 'Renraku', the word for 'informing'. 'Sou' is derived from 'Soudan', the word for 'consulting'. refers to "getting your hands dirty", to identify or solve immediate problems and leaders are not exempt from this. Aspects of these principles are often mistaken by western managers as "micromanagement". The term of "ringi" has two meanings. The first meaning being of "rin", 'submitting a proposal to one's supervisors and receiving their approval,' and "gi" meaning 'deliberations and decisions.' Corporate policy is not clearly defined by the executive leadership of a Japanese company. Rather, the managers at all levels below executives must raise decisions to the next level except for routine decisions. The process of "ringi decision making" is conducted through a document called a "ringisho". The "ringisho" is created and circulated by the individual who created the idea. As the "ringisho" reaches a peer for review, the peer places his or her "personal seal (hanko) right side up" to agree, "upside down" to disagree, and sideways to indicate being undecided. Once all peers have reviewed the "ringisho" the peers' manager reviews the "ringisho" and places his or her hanko on it. The upper level manager's decision is final and the "ringisho" is sent back to the originator who either initiates the idea or re evaluates, based on the "hanko" of the upper level manager. Yang refers to "long term vision setting" as a different process from "long range planning".

In smaller companies, an entirely different corporate culture developed. Similar to the Meister system of Germany, new recruits are placed under skilled senior specialists and spend years learning every technique that they have. They are trained to develop deeper understanding of specific areas of skills instead of the broader and less deep training that those in a larger corporation receive. They learn to produce work of high quality using few simple tools and few or no advanced industrial tools.

As the modern cultures of the world continue to evolve, cultural concepts either lose presence or evolve with the modern concepts. Japan is experiencing such an evolution in regard to women in the workplace and in management roles. While a main reason for this evolution is the adoption of western influence on Japanese society, Japan is being forced to support this evolution because it is grappling with a declining population and lower birth rate which will lead to a smaller workforce. According to "Cloud, or Silver Linings?" published in the Economist (2007), it was reported that in 2006 Japan's birth rate was 1.32 and has been below 2.1 since the 1970s. A birthrate of 2.1 is necessary to successfully maintain current population numbers. The article described that the OECD has proven there is a "positive correlation between fertility and female employment." Thus, if an effort is made to support females work ambitions and family desires, then women will be more willing and likely to want to have children and families and not have to sacrifice their career in the process. Japanese officials are not taking this information lightly. During his last year in office, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2002–2007) began legislation to foster "financial support for families with young children and an expansion of child care facilities (p. 27).