Japanese Management Techniques and British Workers

Japanese Management Techniques and British Workers
Author: Andy Danford
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2013-12-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 131772772X

Analyzing the impact of Japanese-style management techniques such as lean production, teamworking, kaizen (continuous improvement) and business unionism of factory workers, this text investigates different facets of the organization of the labour process and employment relations within 15 Japanese transplants in South Wales. There is an emphasis on the impact of the restructuring of workplace relations on both individual groups of workers and collective labour organization. The text provides an insight into the reality of factory life in the 1990s by incorporating descriptions of shop-floor observations, quantitive data and revealing comments from different grades of shop-floor workers, office workers and management.

Workers, Managers, Productivity

Workers, Managers, Productivity
Author: Akio Hosono
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-02-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9811503648

This open access book provides a glimpse into the Japanese management technique known as “Kaizen,” and the ways it has been disseminated around the developing world. The novelty of this book is three-fold: it provides a contextualized view of the mechanisms of initiatives implementing Kaizen in developing countries; compared with productivity studies, it places the relationship between workers and managers at the center of inquiry, reflecting the intent of SDG8 concerning decent work and economic growth; and it provides an overview of the heterogeneity of Kaizen in terms of geography and firm size. This book explores how improving management techniques can support firms’ productivity and quality. Given its wide range of case studies from across Africa, Asia and Latin America, this book will be of value to scholars, policymakers and advocates of sustainable development alike.

Assembling Work

Assembling Work
Author: Tony Elger
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2005-04-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191529125

Japanese manufacturing firms established in Britain have often been portrayed as carriers of Japanese corporate best practice for work and employment. In this book, the authors challenge these views through case study research, undertaken at several Japanese manufacturing plants in Britain during the 1990s. The authors argue that in actual fact production and employment regimes are adapted and 're-made' in a number of ways, responding to specific corporate and local contexts. In particular, they focus upon the ways in which Japanese and British managers have sought to construct distinctive work regimes in the light of their particular branch plant mandates and competencies, the evolving character of management-worker relations within factories and the varied product and labour market conditions they face. The book highlights the constraints as well as the opportunities facing managers of these greenfield workplaces, and the uncertainties that continued to characterize the development of management strategies. Ultimately the authors show how arguments about the role of overseas branch plants in the dissemination of management practices must take more careful account of the varied ways in which such factories are implicated in wider corporate strategies. The operations of international firms are embedded within intractable features of capitalist employment relations, especially as they are 're-made' in specific local and national settings. This book is an important intervention in contemporary debate about international firms and globalization, and will be of interest to teachers, researchers, and advanced students of this subject from disciplines including Business Studies, Organization Studies, Industrial Relations, Sociology, Political Economy, and Economic and Social Geography.

Japanese Management Techniques

Japanese Management Techniques
Author: Badar Alzadjali
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Total Pages: 29
Release: 2010-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3640719751

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, language: English, abstract: Japanese Management Techniques Alzadjali, B. (2009) 2 - 10 There is no doubt that every person from all walks of life is indeed using a Japanese product or technology in his daily life, whether it is cars, pens or paper. Indeed, Japan provided the world with many successful global companies and brands such as Sony, Fujitsu, HP and Toyota. These global Japanese brands did not only affect Japanese economy, it also affected the world economy and trade. These industrial revolutions put Japan on one of the six big industrial countries alongside the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. It is not the manufacturing elements that made Japan reach that, but there is also a great management system. The success of their approaches was not by adopting a fixed accounting system or by Activity-based costing ABC, but by using systematic flexible systems (Patel and Russell 1994, pp.64-65). In the last 50 years, Japan brought to the world a successful management style starting with a government model in the early 1950s, to a corporate model in the 1980s (Porter et al. 2002; Whitehill 1991). The root of the modern Japanese management goes back to post Second World War, when Japan started its economic recovery. Japan started a phenomenal revolution management system (Porter et al. 2002; Whitehill 1991). Towards the 1970s, research showed that the United States and some European countries used a similar system (Hayashi 2002). In 1980s the time came to challenge just how these systems would work out under the Japanese corporate management systems. Professor William Ouchi's book, about the Japanese management system entitled Theory Z: how American business can meet the Japanese challenge (England 1983; Hayashi 2002). The book became a standard management system practice in the United States for more than 20 years. During the last centu

Japanese Manufacturing Techniques

Japanese Manufacturing Techniques
Author: Richard Schonberger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1982
Genre: Industrial management
ISBN: 0029291003

Japanese productivity and quality standards have fired the imagination of American managers, but until now there has been little explanation of how to do it -- how to apply Japanese methods at the actual operating level of U.S. manufacturing plants. This book shows you how, exposing otherwise well-informed westernized readers to a new world of management ideas. Author Richard J. Schonberger demonstrates that the Japanese formula for success is based on a number of specific, interrelated techniques -- stunning in their simplicity -- and he shows how these techniques can be put to work in American industries today. Here, in a clear, handbook format, are nine "lessons" for American manufacturers, introducing scores of techniques aimed at simplifying the overly-complex purchasing, inventory, assembly-fine, and quality-control processes of U.S. firms. At the heart of Japanese manufacturing success are two overlapping strategies: "just-in-time" production and "total quality control." Some American manufacturers already know a little about these methods, but Richard Schonberger provides the most comprehensive description of these techniques available: how they developed, how they all fit together, why they are so potent, and how they "snowball" -- unleashing a powerful chain reaction of productivity and quality control improvements each time more simplification is introduced. -- Publisher description.

Understanding Japanese Management Practices

Understanding Japanese Management Practices
Author: Parissa Haghirian
Publisher: Business Expert Press
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2010-08-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1606491199

This book outlines the particulars of Japanese management and how modern Japanese management employs many practices which are very successful and worth adopting. The main objective of this book is to illustrate the many teachings that Japanese management practice can offer the rest of the world. The book thus targets managers who deal with Japanese business partners, or work in Japan, students of Japanese Studies, Asian Studies or International Business.

Case Studies in Japanese Management

Case Studies in Japanese Management
Author: Parissa Haghirian
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9814340871

Provides an opportunity for corporate strategy analysis within a Japanese context. This textbook regroups case studies to decorticate key concepts in Japanese management. It also includes over 11 cases that depict issues in entering the Japanese market, strategic issues when managing in Japan, marketing management, and crisis management.

Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management

Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management
Author: Parissa Haghirian
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 596
Release: 2016-01-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317859545

The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management provides a comprehensive overview of management and business processes and practices in Japanese companies. The contributors combine theoretical findings and research results with a practical and contemporary view on how corporations and firms are managed in Japan. The handbook is divided into eight sections covering: historical perspectives on Japanese management; structure and theory of the Japanese firm; the corporate environment in Japan; the Japanese work environment; the Japanese market; manufacturing and logistics; interaction and communication; the future of Japanese management. This book is an essential reference resource for students and scholars working on Japanese companies, the Japanese market-place, Japanese consumers, or management processes in the Japanese firm. The book also provides an interesting and informative read for managers who need to deepen their knowledge on Japanese business processes.