National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Reference List
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 46
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 47
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 48
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 49
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 50
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 51
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 52
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 54
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 55
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 56
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 57
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 58
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 60
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 61
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 62
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 63
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 64
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 68
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 69
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 70
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 71
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 72
Suggested Citation:"Bibliography." National Research Council. 1994. Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18453.
×
Page 73

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Bibliography Books and Reports: Abegglen, J. C. 1958. The Japanese Factory. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press. Benedict, R. 1946. The Chrysanthemum and The Sword. Boston, Massachusetts: Hough ton Mifflin. Cole, R. E. 1971. Japanese Blue Collar. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Cole, R. E. 1979. Work, Mobility, and Participation. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Cole, R. E. 1989. Strategies for Learning. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Cutler, R. S., ed. 1991. Engineering in Japan, Education, Practice and Future Outlook. Procedings of a joint symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Japan Society for Science Policy and Research Management, Washington, D.C. Cutler, R. S., ed. 1993. Technology Management in Japan: R&D Policy, Industrial Stategies, and Current Practice. Procedings of a joint symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Japan Society for Science Policy and Research Management, Washington, D.C. Dore, R. 1973. British Factory - Japanese Factory. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Fruin, W. M. 1992. The Japanese Enterprise System: Competitive Strategies and Cooperative Structures. New York, New York: Clarendon Press. 46

Bibliography 47 Gercik, P. 1993. On Track with the Japanese, a Case-by-Case Approach to Building Successful Relationships. New York, New York: Kodansha. Goto, K. 1993. Science, Technology and Society: a Japanese Perspective. Austin, Texas: 1C2 Institute. Ham, I. 1991. Comparative Analysis of Management of Technology in Japan and the U.S State College, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Honda, H., ed. 1992. Working in Japan: An Insider's Guide for Engineers. New York, New York American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Japanese External Trade Office (JETRO). 1992. U.S. and Japan in Figures II. New York, New York. Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Jordan, E. H., and R. D. Lambert. 1991. Japanese Language Instruction in the United States: Resources, Practice, and Investment Strategy. Washington, D.C.: National Foreign Language Center. Kenney, M., and R. Florida. 1993. Beyond Mass Production, the Japanese System and Its Transfer to the U.S. New York: Oxford University Press. Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). 1993. Business Initiatives for Global Partnership - a List of Contacts at Companies and Organizations. Tokyo, Japan: MITI. NRC. 1991. A Shared Vision of Manufacturing Research: 1990 Japan-U.S. Manufacturing Research Exchange. Manufacturing Studies Board, National Research Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. NRC. 1992. Insights from an NRC Workshop on Expanding Access to Japanese Robotics R&D. Office of Japan Affairs, National Research Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. NRC. 1992. U.S.-Japan Strategic Alliances in the Semiconductor Industry - Technology Transfer, Competition, and Public Policy. Office of Japan Affairs. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Taguchi, G., and Y.-I. Wu. 1979. Introduction to Off-line Quality Control. Nagoya. Japan: Central Japan Quality Control Association.

48 Learning from Japan Tatsuno, S. M. 1990. Created in Japan - from Imitators to World Class Innovators. New York, New York: Harper Business. U.S. Congress Joint Committee. 1990. Japan's Economic Challenge. Washington, D.C. U.S. House of Representatives. 1990. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991. Washington, D.C. van Wolferen, K. 1989. The Enigma of Japanese Power. New York: Basic Books. World Bank. 1992. The East Asian Miracle. Washington, D.C. Articles: Edmondson, H., and S. Wheelwright. 1989. Outstanding Manufacturing in the Coming Decade. California Management Review. Summer:70-90. Song, X. M., and M. E. Parry. 1993. How the Japanese manage the R&D-marketing interface. Research-Technology Management. July-August: 32-38. Taffel, W. C. Advantageous Liaisons. 1993.Technology Review. May/June:29-36.

Appendix A: Pertinent Text of the 1991 National Defense Authorization Act National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991; Report 101-384; July 20, 1990; pages 121 and 122. U.S.-JAPAN INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT TRAINING The committee [Senate Armed Services Committee] believes that the strength of the U.S. defense industrial base directly depends on the strength of the Nation's overall industrial base. One U.S. ally, Japan, has demonstrated outstanding abilities in building and sustaining a strong industrial base achieved in large part by creatively using science and technology to support its industrial base activities. The committee believes that the United States can significantly benefit by understanding, in detail, the management and business practices used by Japan in these areas of science, engineering, and manufacturing. The committee directs the Secretary of Defense to establish a program which will support, through competitively awarded grants, at least 10 U.S. universities, colleges, or nonprofit institutions to study Japanese industry and technology management methods. A major purpose of these programs shall be to prepare scientists, engineers, and managers to learn from their Japanese counterparts by being able to work closely with them throughout their careers in government or industry. The committee believes that to accomplish this required close working relationship, the programs should provide training in the Japanese language and an understanding of Japanese business and social culture. Although this program is not intended to provide direct grants or aid to individuals, the program should provide its participants with an opportunity to be directly involved in Japanese scientific research, engineering development, and management programs and should be structured to help keep American government and industry abreast of Japanese scientific and technical developments and their importance. In selecting the programs to support under this initiative, the committee directs the Secretary to give special consideration to the inclusion of universities, colleges, and nonprofit institutions that can support participation of scientists, engineers, and managers from DoD and DoE laboratories. Special consideration should also be given to selecting organizations that agree to share program costs on an equitable basis, and which have demonstrated an ability to promote interchange of Japanese and U.S. scientists, engineers, and managers, including placing U.S. participants in Japanese research facilities and laboratories. 49

Appendix B: AFOSR Program Announcement Selections from the Announcement for the Department of Defense United States-Japan Industry and Technology Management Training. Air Force Office of Scientific Research Special Announcement I. OBJECTIVES The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) announces a Fiscal Year 1993 competition to support the United States-Japan Industry and Technology Management Training Program for the Department of Defense (DoD). The strength of the U.S. defense industrial base directly depends on the strength of our nation's overall industrial base. In light of Japan's technological successes, there is merit in understanding, in detail, the management and business practices used by Japan in the areas of science, engineering, and manufacturing. An increased understanding of Japan's technology management methods, and training in the Japanese language and culture will benefit American scientists, engineers, and managers in establishing long term relationships with Japan. This research, education, and training should serve to create a growing cadre of US researchers and technologists in industry, government, and academia that can stay abreast of Japanese scientific and technical developments and their importance. The goals of the program are as follows: a. Increase understanding of Japanese industry and technology management methods for the creative use of science and technology. b. Provide U.S. citizen and permanent resident scientists, engineers, managers, and students of these areas, training in the Japanese language and an understanding of Japanese business and social culture. c. Provide program participants with opportunities to be directly involved in Japanese scientific research, engineering development, and management activities. d. Provide mechanisms for participation of scientists, engineers, and managers from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy laboratories. e. Create mechanisms for cooperation and partnership between US industry, academia, and government to apply and employ the results of this program. AFOSR implemented this program for DoD in 1991. In response to the 1991 announcement AFOSR awarded four two-year grants to: Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Michigan; University of Wisconsin-Madison on behalf of the Engineering Alliance for Global Education (EAGLE), a consortium of 13 engineering schools, and the National Technological University (NTU); and Vanderbilt University. SO

Appendix B 51 In 1992, four two-year awards were made to Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of New Mexico and University of Texas-Austin (joint award), and University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (joint award). AFOSR is now seeking proposals from institutions of higher education and non-profit institutions for 1993 awards. These institutions must demonstrate records of high accomplishment in the disciplines of science, engineering, and business management. Institutions submitting proposals for participation in the US-Japan Industry and Technology Management Training Program will be expected to present evidence of understanding of the complex subject matter, including the interfaces among Japanese science, technology, business management and culture. Special consideration will be given to selecting organizations that agree to share program costs on an equitable basis, and which have demonstrated an ability to promote interchange of Japanese and U.S. scientists, engineers, and managers, including placing U.S. participants in Japanese research facilities and laboratories. Proposing institutions are expected to have established relationships with Japan's academic and R&D communities. The four primary 1991 awardees are eligible to compete for the 1993 awards; the proposals from these awardees, if they resubmit, should demonstrate progress in obtaining other sources of support. Since cost snaring, outside support, and plans for outyear support were important considerations for selection in 1991 and continue to be important considerations for 1993, the 1991 grantees are eligible for awards that should not exceed two thirds of the amount awarded to them in 1991. The 1992 awardees are not eligible to submit proposals for the 1993 awards. AFOSR, on behalf of DoD, plans to award several two-year grants of approximately $1 to $3 million in magnitude. Awards will be made to as many institutions as possible. Institutions receiving grants will be expected to work cooperatively with the new and 1992 grantees to meet the overall program goals. Cooperation and sharing of ideas among the grantees are critical to the overall success of this program. The AFOSR technical point of contact for this competition is Lieutenant Colonel Claude Cavender, AFOSR/NI, 110 Duncan Avenue, Suite B115, Boiling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. 20332-0001, phone (202) 767-4970.

Appendix C: Cultural Relativity and the Study of Japanese Management W. Mark Fruin INTRODUCTION Major Western studies of Japanese firms and industries are inevitably linked to the frames of reference with which America and American-trained scholars have looked at Japan. Beginning with Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Benedict, 1946), the first social scientific investigation of Japanese society by an American scholar, studies of Japan should be understood in terms of what was happening in America as much as what was happening in Japan. Ruth Benedict's pioneering work, for example, fixated on what were seen as apparently incongruous cultural elements, such as giri and ninjo (duty and feeling), seppuku and kyoshi (ritual suicide). Yet much of the incongruity for Benedict was related to the Pacific War and to America's struggles with a little-understood enemy, Japan. Indeed, the title of Benedict's book itself was a statement of perceived incongruity: the chrysanthemum and the sword. Benedict's pioneering scholarship may be characterized as belonging to the "shreds and patches" school of anthropology, because shreds and patches of information were all that were available during the earliest period of inquiry into Japanese culture. Unfortunately, the legacy of Benedict's tentative analysis lives long after her work and after "shreds and patches" have been superseded by more-comprehensive data. Karel van Wolferen's The Enigma of Japanese Power (van Wolferen, 1989) is another shreds and patches-like interpretation of Japan that emphasizes social, cultural and political incongruity and contradiction in Japan. This essay argues that interpretations of the Japanese business and economic system are inevitably linked to the frames of reference with which researchers approach Japan. Typically, these frames of reference characterize Japan in one of two oversimplifying ways: either Japan is mysterious, exotic, and full of contradiction (from a Western point of view) or Japan is rather like any other advanced industrial country, even though it is not part of the Western world. A succession of seven frames of reference, often extreme in how they characterize Japan, has appeared during the past 40 years. From a product life-cycle point of view, therefore, the average Japan paradigm holds sway for about half a decade; five or six years, by the way, is much less time than it takes to research, write, and propagate the studies in the first instance. Post-Benedict, the succeeding frames of reference are largely evolutionary, even 52

Appendix C 53 though it may be difficult to find a direct relationship between them. As the number of scholars engaged in research using original materials are few, everybody's work is read by everybody else. After "shreds and patches", the six succeeding points of view on Japan are • culture explains everything; • culture explains nothing (the structure-and-function paradigm); • culture explains something (the "patterns of behavior" school); • history explains everything (the "late-development" hypothesis); • social differences are important even while cultural differences are hard to specify and interpret; and • culture as learning, hence culture is defined by progressive and most often positive patterns of individual, organizational, and social learning. MILESTONE STUDIES OF THE JAPANESE FIRM James Abegglen's The Japanese Factory (Abegglen, 1958), published in 1958, represented a substantial step forward in Westerners' knowledge of the Japanese workplace, although it was rooted in a historical interpretation that subsequently has been widely criticized. In his interpretation, Abegglen identified three institutional elements—lifetime employment, seniority-based compensation, and enterprise unionism—that accounted for the distinctiveness of employment and work experience in Japan. Abegglen was not concerned with competitiveness, and so in his work there was no effort to link institutional distinctiveness with industrial competitiveness. Also, Abegglen's explanation for the distinctiveness of Japanese employment relations was incomplete; he did not deal with the substantial differences in employment conditions between large firms and small ones, and he failed to understand how recently the institutional features of modern industrial employment had appeared. Because lifetime employment, seniority-based compensation, and enterprise unionism were so at odds with what was found in the United States, Abegglen mistakenly attributed their existence to deep-rooted, historical patterns in Japan. Abegglen's explanation for the origins of Japan's employment patterns and practices may have been wrong, however, he was a pioneer in identifying some of the more salient features of the Japanese employment system. Hence, Abegglen's work represented a considerable advance over the "shreds and patches" school of interpretation, and by the 1960s it could be said that American social scientists were looking systematically for predictable patterns of behavior in their assessment of institutional and economic development in various countries around the world. Japan was one of the countries most intensively studied, because, even then, Japan was one of the most remarkable success stories in a genre of academic work generally know as "modernization studies." Modernization studies were concerned with the process of becoming modern. Modern was defined loosely as a constellation of economic, social, and political features that promoted individualism, representative government, and industrial democracy. While no one was crass enough to suggest that modern meant American, there was a remarkable

54 Learning from Japan convergence in what was held up as "modern" and what was seen as the best of North American and Western European personal, social, and institutional values. Implicitly, what was good for America was good for the rest of the world. There was an indirect association between modernization studies and the reigning paradigm in sociological studies of work, employment, and industrial development. Talcott Parsons and other leading social scientists had refined a model of behavioral and social activity that was usually labeled the "structural-functional" school. This was the dominant school of analysis in North America although in Europe it had to contend with a number of continental rivals for acceptance. Structural functionalism, defined simply, argued that various structural patterns of activity often masked a remarkable similarity in function. Robert Cole's book, Japanese Blue Collar (Cole, 1971), analyzed the Japanese work place with a structural-functional framework. Unlike Abegglen, Cole found the institutional patterns of employment in Japan to have little to do with culture and history and more with the rationality of developing labor resources in a resource-poor, economically limited society. Lifetime employment makes sense when labor markets are uncertain, skilled labor is in demand, and the efficacy of technology transfer is dependent on the availability of experienced workers. The institutional basis of labor productivity rests more with the stability of employment within individual companies than with union guarantees against layoffs or other acts of managerial coercion common in the West. A British social scientist stepped in to what had been started by Benedict, Abegglen, and Cole. Ronald Dore took a very different tack. In his British Factory - Japanese Factory (Dore, 1973), Dore agreed with Benedict and Abegglen that Japanese industrial organization and relations are different, but he disagreed with Cole that they were the functional equivalents of Western structures and institutions. Dore highlighted the late-development effect—that is, he argued that history makes a difference. When new industrial practices are adopted has a profound effect on how they are adopted. Dore asserted that the later the onset of industrialization, the more likely government involvement in planning the process of industrialization, the more likely labor-management consensus, the more important the role of ideology in industrialization, and the larger the units of organization in order to cope with the more advanced forms of production and distribution that accompany late industrialization. Thus, Dore posits a late-learning effect to accompany late industrialization. Companies and governments can look around the world, see what others have done, and benefit from their experience. Late industrialization and late learning are what make Japanese industrial relations and employment institutions different. At long last, here was a story that did not assume the non-Western world was simply a pale imitation of a more advanced, Western world. Late development resulted in qualitatively different institutions. Leading researchers responded to Dore in various ways. Robert Cole stuck to the structure-function model but with some significant modification. Social factors make a difference, sometimes important differences, in the way functional forces are expressed and realized. Consequently, argued Cole's Work, Mobility, and Participation and Strategies for Learning (Cole, 1979, 1989), the same functional activities, such as the spread of quality control management in modern industrial economies, could be realized in different ways in different social settings. Cole's interpretation in these works emphasizes macro-

Appendix C 55 organizational forces that significantly influence the way in which functional development is realized. Another important book in this vein was Chalmers Johnson's MITI and the Japanese Miracle (Johnson, 1982). Johnson characterized Japan as a capitalist development state as opposed to America, a capitalist regulatory state. The role of government was to lead, cajole, promote, and develop. Johnson believed that the differences between the role of the state in Japan an that in the West were closely related to Japan's late development and to resulting social and institutional differences in Japan's development trajectory. In short, institutions matter. For historical, social, and cultural reasons, institutions develop in particular ways with particular consequences. This insight, realized after 40 years of research on Japan, is now culminating in a considerable number of studies where the institutions of business and economics in Japan are taken as central and distinctive, and where they are not seen as the functional equivalents of Western institutions. But, at the same time, the large numbers of Japanese transplant operations in the United States and Canada give the impression that Japanese firms have brought their production and organizational systems to North America. Martin Kenney and Richard Florida's Beyond Mass Production (Kennedy and Florida, 1993) is subtitled "The Japanese System and its Transfer to the U.S." This approach disembodies the development and functioning of the Japanese business system from the system's cultural, social, and institutional context and focuses instead on its "successful" implantation elsewhere in the world. This mode of analysis is frighteningly close to the shreds and patches school of anthropological interpretation initiated by Ruth Benedict some forty years ago. A patchwork of features without social, historical, and cultural grounding becomes the disembodied definition of a robust, successful, elaborate, complex, and fundamentally different economy. The complexity of Japan is encapsulated in an apparently successful transfer of "the Japanese system," an amalgamation of practices that have been "successfully" transferred from Japan. Finally, the last genre of business studies of Japan, "the culture as learning" point of view, does not have a static picture of what Japanese corporations do or of how they do it. Instead a dynamic, ever changing, ever restless, process of individual, social, and institutional growth and differentiation drives ahead Japanese firms, as it does firms everywhere else in the world. In this view, culture-creation and culture-generation processes occur everywhere . While such processes are universal, they differentiate Japanese behavior from the behavior of all other peoples, because learning is progressive, nearly irreversible, and occurs within specific institutional environments. In this view, while quality-control circles in Japan and the United States may appear to be analogous, in fact they are not. The functioning of quality-control circles in Japan is predicated on what has been found to work there, and quality-control circles in the United States are likewise related to what works here; the workings of quality control circles in the two countries are necessarily different. As this quick review of milestone studies in Japanese business and management has revealed, Western studies of Japan necessarily reflect a dialectical process: what is studied about Japan is related to what is happening in Western academic circles. What "they" are is related to what "we" are. However, as Japan recovered from the devastation of World War II and as Japanese business has assumed a worldwide importance, the push and pull

56 Learning from Japan of the dialectic changed. "Learning from Japan" is replacing "the study of Japan" as a Western point of view. Japanese business and management issues are mainstream academic fare today. What we are is increasingly linked to what they are. Henceforth, improving knowledge of Japanese technology-management practices is improving knowledge of American technology-management practices.

Appendix C 57 REFERENCE LIST Abegglen, J.C. 1958. The Japanese Factory. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press. Benedict, R. 1946. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company. Cole, R.E. 1971. Japanese Blue Collar. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Cole, R.E. 1979. Work, Mobility, and Participation. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Cole, R.E. 1989. Strategies for Learning. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Dore, R. 1973. British Factory-Japanese Factory. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Kenney, M., and R. Florida. 1993. Beyond Mass Production, the Japanese System and Its Transfer to the U.S. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. van Wolferen, K. 1989. The Enigma of Japanese Power. New York, New York: Basic Books.

Appendix D: Second Round Program Summaries PROGRAM SUMMARY: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Japan Management of Technology Program ( $1.7 million granted over two years, +$ .3 million cost sharing; Director: Bob Cole) Prime goal: The program at Berkeley has as its guiding philosophy "the U.S. research and business establishments, while still highly creative, are often unaware of developments—both technical and managerial—originating in Japan." The program is a collaboration among the College of Engineering, the Haas School of Business, and the Department of East Asian Languages. These groups plan to support nearly 20 percent of the cost of the program. The university presently has a certificate in management of technology (MOT) for graduates in business and engineering. Ten to twelve students per year receive the MOT Certificate. Twenty to forty-five take courses in the program. There is already an extensive array of Japanese research and instruction at Berkeley outside the MOT program. For example, "Cross Cultural Management Issues", "Japanese Management and Organization" are two courses taught in the Haas School of Business. Berkeley is using the APOSR grant to bolster the existing MOT program with Japanese issues. They are building on the research already established in MOT and building up a language training capability to facilitate this Japanese focus. School Background: the largest and oldest of nine University of California campuses; 21,590 undergraduate students and 1,586 faculty. The school has offered Japanese language study since 1896. A Center for Japanese Studies was established in 1958. There are presently 2,000 students active in the center and there are 20 faculty members. Berkeley has the largest library collection on Japan in the United States. The Haas School of Business is integrated with the center. There are a few classes on Japanese technology in the M.B.A,-East Asian Studies curriculum. Program elements: The grant was requested to "expand our interdisciplinary research program in high-technology management that builds on work already underway between faculty at the Haas School of Business and the College of Engineering." Language instruction, fellowships and internships, MOT dissemination, and a television link among national laboratories were to support this primary goal. SB

Appendix D 59 Research on High Technology Management in Japanese and U.S. Firms - The research that is funded by the AFOSR grants is distinguished from other Berkeley research by several characteristics. The projects are being carried out collaboratively by faculty and students in the graduate business school and the college of engineering. The topics have been selected with input from local industry, and in several instances with the assistance of industry. The current projects are • product definition in electronic systems products in the United States and Japan (Professors Bacon, Wilson, Beckman and Mowery; are examining the early phases of the new product development); • product definition in software products in the United States and Japan (Professors Beckman, Dunn, Malan, and Mowery; will examine international competition in the software industry); • international computer software industry study (Professor Mowery); • program design, performance, and technology transfer in research and development (Professors Teese and Mowery); • management of new process introduction in the semiconductor industry (Professors Leachman, Hodges, and Mowery); • the role of Japan's national laboratory complex in supporting economic competiveness (Professors Cole and Mowery); • team-based work-force organization in the United States, Japanese semiconductor industries (Professor Adiga); • standardization in manufacturing equipment design in the United States and Japan (Professor Cole); and • public funding for technology development in Japan (Professor Schaede). Language Instruction in Technical Japanese - Five hundred students per semester attend modern Japanese language courses at Berkeley. Approximately 100 undergraduate students major in Japanese at Berkeley each year (second in number only to French). For the AFOSR program, a new track in Japanese, emphasizing business and technical applications, was developed. Four new faculty positions were filled to accomplish the MOT emphasis of Japanese language instruction. To facilitate the recruitment of the best candidate available, the director of the Center for Japanese Studies persuaded the Berkeley campus administration to convert the new faculty position in technical Japanese in the East Asian Language Program to a permanent tenured position. The language track is targeted at the MOT program participant but is open to all undergraduate and graduate students as well as outside professionals. It comprises: • four years of language instruction, with summer intensive options to allow completion in 2 years for masters students in engineering and business administration; and • business and technical Japanese: a set of three courses offered for the first time in fall 1993.

60 Learning from Japan MOT Fellowships - Five MS candidates from the College of Engineering and four from the School of Business have each received a $10,000 fellowship, 75 percent of which comes from AFOSR funds, and 25 percent from the school. All will complete studies in the MOT program with the intent of receiving a "certificate." Professional education program - This is a three-week program that was planned for and directed at the U.S. participants employed in the area. Instructional TV Link to National Laboratories - This project includes involvement and interaction with Department of Defense and Department of Energy laboratories. A teleconference on technology management is planned for this spring. Transfer and Dissemination of Research Results Cooperative efforts with other grantees PROGRAM SUMMARY: THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO AND THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN Center for Study of Japanese Industry and Management of Technology ($2.7 million granted over two years; Director at University of New Mexico: Wally Lopez) The University of New Mexico's Center for the Study of Japanese Industry and Management of Technology started with the AFOSR grant in October 1992. The center's director at the University of New Mexico reports directly to the Provost, so the usual wrangling between departments and colleges is reduced. This autonomy is considered a definite strength and is unique among the program schools. Prime Goal: The idea of the program is "to strengthen U.S. private and military industrial competitiveness through the effective management and implementation of technology among researchers, developers, managers, and users; and to understand the Japanese methods and philosophies of managing technology." School background: The University of New Mexico: 28,000 students, 1,200 faculty; 122 years old; largest and most prominent of the state's 22 universities and colleges; key research areas: Optoelectronics, ceramics, noninvasive medical imaging, microelectronics, and mathematics. The Department of Modern and Classical Languages has offered courses in Japanese since 1985. Currently they have a two-year program for Japanese studies. There is an Asian Studies Center that brings together 13 university departments to offer a wide variety of courses relating to Asia. A strength of this program is based on the research work in advanced materials being done in the Albuquerque area, 64 companies like Motorola, Intel,

Appendix D 61 Sumatomo, etc., and national laboratories like Sandia, Los Alamos, and Phillips Air Force Base. There is also a supercomputer center at Phillips. With this concentration of technical activity, the school can effectively act as a conduit for information on Japanese technology management techniques to the local scientists and engineers. The University of Texas at Austin: (Director: Fred Phillips); 49,000 students, 2,355 faculty; the Innovation, Creativity, Capital Institute is a major international research center for key business, technological, and economic issues, and is to administer the Japanese Industry and Management of Technology program at Austin. The Japan Business Study Program of the Graduate School of Business is devoted to Japanese language, culture, politics, and current events. The University of Texas at Austin is acting as a subcontractor to the University of New Mexico and will be used for their research expertise. The International Liaison Office of Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) is also a subcontractor to the University of New Mexico and will be used to develop the data bases on Japanese language research and development activities. Beginning in May 1993, MCC made the WATT and NickDat data bases available to all AFOSR grantees. These data bases contain an extensive collection of technical reports and articles published originally in Japanese. Some have been translated into English; some have an English language abstract; others just reference title, subject, and author. These data bases may be the most extensive of their kind in the United States. Program Elements: Internships - At the University of New Mexico, an internship training and placement program focuses on training midcareer professionals (23 employees from government laboratories and industry) to understand Japanese industry and practices of managing technology. It now consists of a two-year preparation with one Japanese language and one non-language course each semester. In the two-year period the participant will receive eight semester equivalents of language training. Take note that the participant is also performing a full-time job while taking these courses. There are plans to enroll 35 participants in the fall of 1993. At the end of the two-year preparation, the interns will be placed for one year in an industrial company or research laboratory in Japan. The internship preparation program gives a stipend to cover books, tuition, and time spent during intensive learning sessions; there is no plan to support the student while in Japan. This means that the Japanese host will be asked to contribute, and the stateside employer will be asked to furnish salary. Because of this cost, it is important to get top management buy-in to the program at the start of preparation. The military participants will have trouble here because it will be difficult to arrange a tour of duty that will first allow a participant to go to Japan and then be put to good use when the internship is over and the interns return to the United States. This is a regional program by intent and necessity. On-site and interactive television courses are required of all prospective interns.

62 Learning from Japan Short courses and workshops - A three-day workshop was held 26-28 May 1993 in Austin, titled "Managing Technology the Japanese Way". Other workshops are being planned. New courses - A nine-day intensive Japanese language course was offered in the summer of 1993. Other courses are being developed. New academic programs - An M.B.A. with a concentration in MOT is under development; a four-year Japanese language training program is planned to start in fall 1994; a Ph.D. in Intercultural Communication with Emphasis on Japan is proposed by the Communication and Journalism Department and is anticipated to start in the fall of 1994; and an Engineering College/Management School joint degree program in MOT with Japan emphasis is planned to begin in the fall of 1995. Research program - There are several subjects under consideration. They include emerging Japanese technology areas, and U.S.-Japan technology transfer policy. Outreach - Efforts included a conference in November 1992, "Opportunities for U.S.-Japan Cooperation," and one in July 1993, "Japanese Intellectual Property Policy." Both were held in Albuquerque. PROGRAM SUMMARY: THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AND CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY The Japanese Science and Technology Management Program ($2.7 million was granted over two years; Director: Keith Brown) Prime goal: The program's goal is to motivate U.S. scientists, engineers, and technical managers to learn the language and the associated culture of Japan, to provide language courses geared to their needs, and to facilitate their training in the shortest amount of time. School background: The University of Pittsburgh was established in 1787. There are approximately 20,000 full- time undergraduate students. The Japanese Science and Technology Management Program is administered through the Asian studies program of the University of Pittsburgh. The Asian studies program was established in 1969 and has developed an extensive range of course offerings in Japanese language, history, and culture. The University of Pittsburgh is a federally designated National Resource Center for East Asian Studies. Nine departments and two professional schools contribute to the center. Carnegie Mellon University traces its antecedents back to 1900 with the founding of Carnegie Technical School. In 1967, Carnegie Technical School and the Mellon Institute merged to form the present university. It presently is one of the top 20 schools in total

Appendix D 63 research funding. Carnegie Mellon has a Japan Representative Office in Tokyo and maintains an exchange agreement with Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Program elements: The Japanese Science and Technology Management Program has five major goals: 1. Induce a cadre of scientists and engineers (existing practitioners and students) to pursue in-depth knowledge and sophisticated understanding of Japanese industry and technology management methods for the creative use of science and technology. 2. Provide training in the Japanese language. 3. Provide a knowledge base in Japanese culture, society, and economy. 4. Provide opportunities for participants' thorough immersion in Japanese manufacturing methods for science, industry, and manufacturing through extended internships and study missions. 5. Conduct research on Japanese industry and technology management methods. Language training - A highly developed Japanese language training program was in place at the University of Pittsburgh, and has been strengthened as a result of the grant. The program includes • "First (and Second) Year Intensive Japanese" (two ten-credit-hour sessions, each 15 weeks at 25 class hours per week); • Technical Japanese," which is designed for the specific needs of scientists and engineers and is aimed to develop broad competencies in reading, speaking, and comprehension (the course, in development at the University of Pittsburgh, is being designed by David Mills); and • Japanese for Technology and Management I and II (at Carnegie Mellon University), which includes a program of computer aided instruction for written Japanese. Outreach • A Japanese culture lecture series offered 16 lectures in the evening during the spring of 1993; the series is continuing in the 1993-94 academic year. A Japanese business lecture series of six sessions was offered in spring 1993 and was open to the public. Outside attendance by local industrial managers was high. Practical experience - The patterns of participation are keyed to the language programs. The University of Pittsburgh has instituted a full-time intensive language program, and gives full support to six or seven graduate students with science and engineering backgrounds. They will, presumably, go to Japan for year-long internships at the end of the language cycle. Carnegie Mellon participants are mainly M.B.A. students with technical undergraduate degrees, who are supported half-time for a half-time intensive language program before going to Japan for a summer internship. Eleven summer internships to Japan were organized

64 Learning from Japan in 1993. Fellowships are granted to finance these trips. One longer-term internship is established, with more planned. Research - One research project is being funded by the Japanese Science and Technology Management Program: structure and development of the Japanese transplant organizations. PROGRAM SUMMARY: STANFORD UNIVERSITY U.S.-Japan Technology Management Center ($2.7 million granted over two years; Director: Robert Burmeister) Prime Goals: 1. Increase the understanding of Japanese industry and technology management methods for the creative use of science and technology, especially in the area of high technology industries. 2. Provide U.S. citizens and permanent resident engineers, scientists, and managers with training in the Japanese language in an efficient manner, and also develop in them an understanding of Japanese business and social culture to increase their effectiveness in decision making in a work economy where the Japanese are major competitors. 3. Provide program participants with opportunities to be directly involved in Japanese scientific research, engineering development, and management activities. 4. Provide mechanisms for the participation of scientists, engineers, and managers from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy laboratories as well as their industrial contractor organizations. School background: Stanford University is an independent school established in 1885. The current student enrollment is 14,000. The U.S.-Japan Technology Management Center involves the close collaboration of five major groups: the School of Engineering, Graduate School of Business, Asia/Pacific Research Center, Asian Language Department/East Asian Language Program, and the Overseas Studies Program. The Stanford Japan Center was opened in Kyoto in 1989. The center director reports to the Dean of the School of Engineering. Program elements: New course development - "Analyzing Japanese High Technology" was attended by 26 on- campus students and was broadcast over the Stanford Instructional Television Network in the fall of 1992. "Japanese Technology R&D Management" is a seminar series that started in the spring of 1993 and was offered to 115 on-campus students and broadcast to 10 off- campus sites. "Introduction to Modern Japanese for Business Persons and Researchers" was piloted in the summer of 1993 as was "Reading Technical Japanese."

Appendix D 65 Research Program - • "Advanced Computing in Japan" is an in-depth study of the Real World Computing Project. • "Computer R&D and Product Development" is a doctoral student's field-based research at a Japanese computer manufacturer's development laboratory in Japan. • "Flat Panel Display" is developing a computer-based model of the high-volume manufacturing process. • "Machine Translation" examines the use of optical character recognition and language translation software on scanned documents to determine the viability of practical machine translation from Japanese to English. • "Optoelectronics" analyses the use of new optoelectronic devices in the Real World Computing Project. • "Semiconductor Manufacturing" is a symposium on Sensor Based Manufacturing held at the Stanford Japan Center in May 1993. Practical Experience - Thirty to forty students per year are already placed in internships in Japan as part of the Stanford Japan Center program. The Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation is part of the center. The students spend four or five months in the program with a ten-week preparatory session in Kyoto followed by a two- to three-month summer "internship" in a company or government position in Japan. The AFOSR grant program proposed holding special training sessions to better prepare the interns. Coordination and Dissemination - Stanford already had close ties with U.S. government laboratories. The U.S.-Japan Technology Management Center is capitalizing on these relationships, especially the one with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The establishment of joint ventures is being discussed with industry in the Silicon Valley. For instance, discussions are being held with the Solid States Industrial Affiliates, a group of local businesses that participate in the Stanford Institutional Television Network.

Appendix E: Other Japan-Oriented Organizations in North America This is a summary of established activities in the United States that have a Japanese focus and contain elements that the Committee to Assess U.S.-Japan Industry and Technology Management Training Programs thinks are important: language, internships, research, dissemination, and coordination. While there always has been considerable interest in the United States about Japan and its people, the last decade has seen an explosion of activity. The majority of this activity captures and disseminates information about Japan in the form of data bases, publications, seminars, and workshops.1 Dissemination and Coordination: There are over 500 Japan-focused organizations in the United States. Of these, 126 are academic programs or associations. Twenty-one are libraries dedicated to Japanese or East Asian material. Sixteen are reference services with over one hundred on-line data bases containing material dealing with Japan. Forty-four universities plus eleven nonacademic institutions have regular publications concerning Japan. Twenty- nine U.S. universities have campuses in Japan, and fourteen Japanese universities have campuses in the United States. Research: The National Science Foundation offers seven programs that sponsor research fellows in Japan, and the Japanese government offers five. Fifty-one organizations in the United States, from the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation to the Smithsonian Institution, encourage exposure to Japanese science and engineering through cooperative research in Japan. Language: According to the National Foreign Language Center, there are currently over 400 postsecondary Japanese language training programs in the United States. The Modern Languages Association of America2 reports that between 1987 and 1990 there was a 97 percent increase in enrollment in such language courses. Further, there are presently 54 universities in the United States that offer graduate courses in Japanese language. 1 The primary source of the information in this appendix is: Gateway Japan, 1424 16th Street, NW Suite #700, Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 265-7685. 2 The Modern Languages Association of America, 10 Astor Place, 5th Floor, New York, NY, 10003, (212) 475-9500 66

Appendix E 67 Internships, Fellowships, and Scholarships: There are 39 exchange programs; 21 universities offer a year abroad in Japan to qualified students. Other Internship Programs: • The Department of Commerce U.S.-Japan Manufacturing Technology Fellowship Program • The National Science Foundation Summer Institute at Tsukuba • The National Science Foundation-administered Junior Investigator and Post-Doctoral Fellowships • Short, medium, and long-term visits by senior investigators Reports: • Japanese government reports on researcher exchange • National Foreign Language Center Report on Japanese Language Instruction in the United States by Eleanor H. Jordan with Richard D. Lambert. Non-academic institutions: • The Asia Society, New York, New York • The Japan Society, New York, New York

Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The U.S.-Japan Industry and Technology Management Training Program provides the opportunity for U.S. academics to broaden and deepen their understanding of the multifaceted sources of Japanese industrial success and to convey that understanding to practitioners in U.S. industry and government laboratories. After reviewing the program's progress, Learning From Japan: Improving Knowledge of Japanese Technology Management Practices concludes that a multidisciplinary approach to research, education, and training must be used, and an aggressive effort must be made to disseminate the results to industry. Building a multidisciplinary specialization would provide a framework for research, publications, curriculum development, and continuing education activities. Yet, making this specialization as relevant and useful as possible would require input from industry, and industry must, in turn, be convinced of the value of the program. Learning From Japan recommends that achieving these twin goals—creating a strong academic specialization and ensuring its relevance to the needs of U.S. industry—should guide the future management of the program.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!