This system requires recruitment right after finishing the school and retirement at the age of fifty-five ; the graduate comes to a low position, his career path is non-specialized (he rotates through almost all jobs in the company) and is promoted and evaluated according to the length service, unlike in Western companies, which employ workers on annual basis and the promotion and evaluation is based on one’s performance. The group principle can be also found in the collective decision making based on consensus of everyone involved, and its result – collective responsibility. Another specific feature of the Japanese society is its high emphasis on the human factor (in fact the only resource Japan has), which stems from both historical concept and underlying social and cultural process, and results in the companies’ holistic concern for their employees. This implies that the Japanese organization forms an inclusive relationship with the worker, provides a social, emotional, and economical support and takes part of the responsibility for the employee; to say it clearly: becomes his second family. In order to achieve this, the maintaining of healthy social and working relationships does not allow for any conflicts and refusals, which would disturb the harmony of the working process, and that is why the Japanese are known for not expressing their opinions, non-committance, and for having double standards, which is in this kind of society considered to be a necessity in order to solve problems without hurting anyone.
A specific characteristic of the Japanese approach is also a leadership by influence, which means a leading process without formal authority involved. The manager has to know how to motivate people, how to win them for his idea and intention, which he achieves by using his charisma and personal qualities instead of his formal designation.
A last but not least Japanese management practice, which I would like to mention is more technical in nature: the Japanese quality control and lean production also known as “just-in-time” or Kanban, the main goal of which is the cost reduction. The quality control is a process, which never allows defective units to flow into and disrupt a subsequent process by making every employee a quality checker, responsible for spotting errors as they happen and correcting them immediately or stopping the production line completely. The “just-in-time” method is used to obtain needed parts in needed quantities when they are required, which eliminates unnecessary large quantities of inventory hanging around for months.
This was a short list of some of the Japanese management practices, which contributed to the magnificent reconstruction and development of the post-war country.