AMERICAN

MANAGEMENT
MODEL
VERSES JAPANESE
MANAGEMENT
MODEL
Fakeha Iqtidar Khan
Ayesha Sultan
 American Versus Japanese
Management Model
 Every country is different from other. There
management, food, way of living and standards are
all different. In some countries government is very
influencing while in other they are not much
bother.
 Such two different countries are America and
Japan.
 They have different cultures and management
systems as a by-product of culture manifests
unique characteristics in both the countries.
 MAJOR DIFFERENCE
 American are performance oriented unlike
Japanese who are perfectionist.
 1. LONG TERM COMMITMENT
 Japanese tends to favor the development of long term relationships
and strategies over short-term gain.
 They spend much more time up front with a potential customer or
supplier before making a commitment unlike Americans which then
allows Japanese to implement decisions much faster after a decision
is made.
 Moreover, in down times Japanese companies avoid layoffs and
contract terminations contrary to Americans.
2. TRAINING AND EDUCATION
 On the Job Training is an American ideology.

 Communication Plaza Concept—Though this is fading in Japan,

employees meet with the executive informally over lunch or dinner to listen
to each other.
 3. GET-IN-TOUCH, LEARNING
FROM FACTS
- Japanese mix with employees and customers:
Japanese engineers, e.g., go to the factories, and don’t wear distinguishing
jackets or hard-hats. An insight in Japanese culture…Japanese
neighborhoods are less stratified in terms of economic class. CEOs may live
next door to engineers and factory workers where as most Americans would
not consider livening next to a subordinate.
- Learn from competitor:
Americans are creative, but would be smart to do more copying.
Japanese are world class at copying and improving upon an idea, but would
be smart to develop their creativity.
 4. EFFORT EVALUATION
- Process versus Results:
This seems to be the key difference between Americans and Japanese.
Americans are more results oriented while Japanese focus on process
improvements.
Once they learn how to do something, they work on small improvements—
they evaluate effort not results. Because Americans are process averse, they
depend on manuals to tell what the results should be.

The down side of the process focus is to kill creativity. Overall, the two
cultures should learn from each other, and become more like each other.
Neither completely process nor completely results focused.
 5. CUSTOMER FIRST AND
SHAREHOLDER LAST
The priority order of customers and suppliers is different for U.S. and Japanese
businesses:
America
1. Shareholder
2. Customer
3. Employee
Japan
1. Customer
2. Employee
3. Supplier
4. Community
5. Country
6. Shareholder
Japanese firm is organized for the employee. It is a more human orientation
 6. TEAM WORK
 The Japanese and Americans see two different meanings behind these words.
 In Japan team work means to help others, here it means functional
maximization, that is to improve results.
 This leads to a difference in the roles on the team. In Japan the team leader is
always asking team members to help more, here the team leader is
responsible for results.
 Americans are more inclined towards individual tasks performance.
7. QUALITY FIRST, COST LAST
 This is the proper ranking of quality in the Japanese organization:
 1. Quality
 2. Quality
 3. Quality
 4. Cost
 Profit is the result of the pursuit of quality—as quality improves, costs go
down.
 Quality includes products, services, machines, layout, policy, planning and
organization.
 8. LEARN FROM THE BEST
 Always look at someone better. The problem is when you get to the top, you
have to become more creative—this is Japan’s challenge
 Short comings of Japans practices are:
 Lack of Decisiveness: they are not transparent. Decisions sometimes take
too long and they loose their timing.
 Individual Ability Ignored: miss creative opportunities.
 Miss Strategic Opportunities: too much delay and time.
 COMPARATIVE
MANAGEMENT
 Because of the success of Japanese
companies in world markets,
 Researchers have paid a special attention to
the Japanese management style . As a result,
 Many scholars compared the Japanese
management system with the American and
European system
 Theory A (American) Theory J (Japanese)
Short-Term Employment Lifetime Employment
Individual Decision Making Collective Decision Making
Individual Responsibility Collective Responsibility
Rapid Evaluation and Promotion Slow Evaluation and Promotion
Explicit Control Mechanisms Implicit Control Mechanisms
Specialized Career Path Nonspecialized Career Path
Segmented Concern for EmployeeHolistic Concern for Employee
     
as a Person      
as a Person

Theory Z (Modified American)

Long-Term Employment
Collective Decision Making
Individual Responsibility
Slow Evaluation and Promotion
Implicit, Informal Control with
Explicit,
       Formalized Measures
Moderately Specialized Career Paths
Holistic Concern, Including Family
 MODEL OF JAPANESE
MANAGEMENT
 Hatvany and Pucik (1981) offer a model of Japanese
management in which they define three interrelated
strategies:
 The authors assert that these general strategies are
translated into specific management techniques
including
 Job rotation and slow promotion;
 Evaluation of attributes and behavior;
 Emphasis on work groups;
 Open communication;
 Consultative decision making; and concern for
employee.
 SEVEN MAJOR
CHARACTERISTICS OF
JAPANESE ORGANIZATIONS
 Lifetime employment,
 Slow evaluation and promotion of
employees,
 Non-specialized career paths,
 Implicit control mechanism,
 Collective decision making,
 Collective responsibility,
 And Holistic concern (building a complete
relationship between employer and
employee, including concerning with
employee's non-work, personal and family,
matters).
The McKinsey 7-S Framework
Followed by Americans
Structure

Strategy Systems

Organization
Management Staff
Skills

Shared
Style
goals
 Pre Theory Z
 Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)
– Identified sets of basic human needs and suggested
that they could be arranged in a hierarchy based on
their importance to the individual.
 Douglas McGregor (1906–1964)
– Developed the Theory X
(traditional—negative—management approach) and
Theory Y (positive management approach) to workers
and work motivation.
 Theory Z (Modified American
Management)
  Theory Z How American Business Can Meet the
Japanese Challenge (Ouchi:1981)
 Theory Z workers:
–  Ouchiexplains that the employees must be very
knowledgeable about the various issues of the
company, as well as possessing the competence
to make those decisions.
– He also points out; however, that management
sometimes has a tendency to underestimate the
ability of the workers to effectively contribute
to the decision making process
 Implications of these types of theories
for leaders
 Modern implications for companies using these
theories have shown:
 An improvement of people skills,.
 Empowering their employees.
 Stimulating change.
 Helping employees balance work with life conflicts.
 Improving ethical behavior.
 Improvements in turnover rates.
 Productivity, effectiveness.
 Efficiency.
 Organizational behavior
 Job satisfaction
 CONCLUSION
 Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y, and William Ouchi’s Theory Z have all
proven to be useful in the management field.
 Many companies have successfully integrated similar economic and human principles
in a management style from Theory’s Y and Z.
 Theory’s Y and Z have both shown to be quite successful framework for American
companies. Theory X is not obsolete.
 The results of an empirical test of the model show that American management style is
different from the Japanese.
 The variability between two countries lies among the all six managerial dimensions
as well.
 While American managers emphasize supervisory style, decision making, and control
mechanism,
 The Japanese are more concerned with communication process, interdepartmental

relations, and paternalistic approach .