Dealing with Japan!
Book Review
JAPAN — Understanding & Dealing with the New Japanese Way of Doing Business
Japan Has Created a Hybrid Business System to Cope with Economic Globalization
A new book, JAPAN: Understanding & Dealing with the New Japanese Way of Doing Business, by Japanologist Boye Lafayette De Mente is designed to bring the foreign business community up to date on how the Japanese now manage their companies, including their new approach to remaining a powerful force in the globalizing economy.
De Mente notes that the rise of Japan as the world’s second largest economy in less than 30 years following its devastating defeat in World War II was one of the great economic sagas of the 20th century, and that by 1970 Japan’s economic juggernaut appeared to be on the verge of economically colonizing the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.
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“However,” he adds, “by the early 1990s this amazing run had fizzled — first because the Japanese financial and real estate industries had unwisely adopted some of the American practices that were to bring these industries down; and second because of the equally incredible rise of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and finally China as major economic powers, combined with the increasing globalization of business.
De Mente says that this new world of global competition combined with the Americanization of the younger generations of Japan made several key aspects of the traditional Japanese way of doing business obsolete, forcing Japanese companies to create a new business paradigm that is a hybrid of traditional Japanese elements and Western business practices.
“This transition is far from complete,” he adds, “particularly in large companies and in government policies, and the struggle between the old and the new continues to have a negative impact on the economy.”
In JAPAN: Understanding & Dealing with the New Japanese Way of Doing Business, De Mente addresses all of these elements, along with the influence of the Internet, the social media and the gradual empowerment of more women on the business world.
He adds that one of the recent topics now being discussed among Japan’s high-level political and social gurus is the need to merge a number of the country’s prefectures into larger political and economic entities, reducing their ties and dependence on the federal government so they can be more independent in engaging in international business.
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