HOW MANAGEMENT IS DONE IN THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN
In past decades the Japanese economy had expanded rapidly and the country’s annual gross national product became one of the largest in the world. A contribution to this growth is said to have been the cold war threat, during which the former leading countries mostly the United States and the Soviet Union were putting a tremendous amount of money to their armament, while Japan under peace Constitution was able to concentrate its efforts on the economy. During this period managers and renowned university professors were trying to find the key to the Japanese success and the “Japanese challenge” became a buzzword for nearly thirty years. Many comparisons between Japanese and American management practices were made, many books related to this topic were written, much research took place and the Japanese management theory soon became an object of wide admiration. This period is already gone. The Japanese economy showed steady growth till the late 80’s, when Japan entered a prolonged period of relative stagnation so-called “bubble economy”, and started experiencing a serious recession. By the beginning of the millennium, the Japanese model once held up as an example to the world is clearly running its course and now is badly in need of complete restructuring. Despite this fact, the Japanese management has become an essential part of the integrated management theory and is still considered to be one of the most significant and noteworthy approaches to this area. To gain a deeper understanding of the Japanese management, we have to describe some of the many cultural differences of this nation, which yield high influence on Japanese society and as a result also on the Japanese business. First and foremost to be mentioned is a strong sense of belonging to a group. The reason for the Japanese group behavior and collective values sharing is definitely the basic unit of society in Japanese minds – “house”, meaning group that bind people together, such as families, companies, schools, unlike the West, where emphasis tends more on individuals. This is the basis for the lifetime employment system in most companies, where the belonging feeling is basically required and employees identify themselves with the organization, which in fact means loyalty and devotion for common corporate goals.