Free Matsushita And Japan’s Changing Culture Case Study Sample

Introduction

Organizational culture plays a very significant role in organization design. The reason for this is because it affects the way in which people work together. Organization culture also influences the day-to-day activities of people, how they communicate, and what behavior is acceptable. Organizational culture also influences how the organization adapts to the external environment (Sawada, 1993).
Organization cultural strength varies from organization to organization. Some organizations have very strong cultures and other have weak cultures. Considering IBM’s organizational culture, its employees can clearly explain how the company operates and what they are expected to do in their various job positions. A strong corporate culture is, therefore, an important aspect of organizational design. Such corporate culture can also be an obstacle to change when it is necessary to the company to respond to external threats. Due to its strong organizational culture, IBM faced significant challenges in redesigning so that it could succeed in the computer solutions market. There are a number of ideas in regards to culture that can be used proactively by companies to redesign in order to attain their goals. For example, the culture should be aligned with the business strategy. In most cases, a company’s strategy is mainly aimed at maximizing profits. For this reason, an organizational culture should be developed that is in alignment with the strategy.

Japanese Traditional Culture

Traditionally, Japan was governed by the Confucian cultural values in their workplace and government. Confucianism has, to a significant extent, been focusing on political change and to a minimal degree, on business operations. Master Kong, which is Latinized as Confucius, was the creator of the Confucian values. Master Kong developed a curriculum in order to teach his ideologies in order to improve on the current governance issues during his lifetime and later periods. The Confucian social and political values were later adopted by the newly formed Chinese state of Han through the facilitation of Mencius, one of the Master Kong’s students. Following the years-long experience with legalism, countries in the East Asian regions adopted the Confucianism as their official ideology of governance. States, including present-day China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan adopted Confucian values and practices. Daily lives and whole systems of governance were to a greater significance justified with reference to Confucian ideals than legalism until the 1990s when a new generation entered the workplace (Bell, 2003).

Confucianism Contribution to Matsushita Growth

The consumer electronics giant that was established in the year 1920, Matsushita played a significant role in the rise of Japan’s status as a major economic power in the years 1970 to 1980. In so doing, Matsushita was at the forefront of facilitating economic growth, and mapping Japan as a major producer of consumer electronics worldwide. During the period of 1970 to 1990, Matsushita was regarded as one of the long-standing Japanese businesses that employed traditional Japanese cultural values in day-to-day operations of the organization. The traditional Japanese cultural values were based on concrete group identification, employee loyalty to the company, and reciprocal obligation. A number of reviewers attributed Matsushita’s success and that of the Japanese economy to the existence of Confucian values in the workplace.
In regards to Matsushita and how the company employed the Confucian cultural values in its business operations, Matsushita employees were taken care of by the enterprise. The company provided the employees with a broad range of benefits, which included cheap housing, seniority-based remuneration system, guaranteed lifetime employment, and generous retirement bonuses. In return, Matsushita expected to get loyalty and work from its employees. One of the primary reasons that facilitated the outdated Confucian values to be upheld among the Matsushita employees and the greater modern Japanese society is the struggle to recover from the post-war humiliation of defeat.
The Confucian cultural values of the year 1950 of the 1960s played a significant role in the strengthening Japans economy and growth of its companies. The traditional cultural values that were practiced in the workplace between the 1950s and 1960s included hard work, group identification, intense loyalty, and believing in a common goal and the greater good of the company. Thought the Confucian cultural values are significantly attributed to Japans steady growth after the world war, the morals are now widely perceived as being too traditional for the modern day and age.

Confucianism in Modern Japan

Confucianism has not been doing well since the advent of modernity in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Max Weber, one of the initial researchers to dedicate thoughtful attention to the affiliation between Confucianism and modernism, pointed out Confucianism among the major world cultural practices as the least conducive to capitalist development. East Asian countries, including Japan began to underrate the cultural practice as they deepened their encounter and relations with the Western countries. In the political scene, nationalists and militarists held Confucianism responsible for their country’s inability to withstand the assault of Western imperialism. On the other hand, of the political arena, the communists and traditionalists did their best to stabilize the Confucianism ideology and viewing capitalism as a self-interest approach to economic development. In regards to the struggle of either maintaining or undoing the use of the Confucianism cultural values, modernity had come to mean overcoming Confucianism and adopting a capitalistic approach to economic development (Mathews, 2012).
At the end of the 20th century, an extended economic collapse pushed a number of Japanese companies to adopt new methods of doing business in order to ensure their survival in the uncertain economic conditions. Some of the companies decided to abandon the Confucian values and organizational culture. For this reason, companies could not reciprocate attractive bonuses and guarantee job security since they were also uncertain of the future. During this period, the Japanese working population was characterized early retirement, retrenchment, and unemployment. The emerging workforce of young people who perceived the actions of the companies as disloyal began to question the rationality and the applicability of the Confucian values in the long-run. The new generation of employees also saw in the insignificance of being tied up in one organization that no longer upholds the Confucian cultural values, yet they can get better opportunities for themselves in other companies. The emerging generation of workers also established that Western ideologies and methods of doing business had substantial opportunities, benefits and freedom for the employees. For this reason, Western values and capitalism became more popularized by the emerging generation of workers in Japan. It marked the commencement of the fall of communism that was cultivated by the Confucian cultural values.
The Japanese business culture had to change because Confucianism was not being upheld by both employers and employees. According to some demographic researchers, the generation born after 1964 lacked commitment to traditional Japanese values as their parents. Since this generation had grown up in a richer and opening-up environment than their parents, they were significantly affected by Western ideas. These developments came before the 1990s, when the Japanese economy entered into a lengthy economic collapse. As the decade progressed, one Japanese company after another was forced to change its traditional ways of doing business. As the younger generation saw this happening, they established that allegiance to a corporation might not be reciprocated, undermining one of the central bargains made in post-war Japan (Giachetti, 2010).
Matsushita was one of the last companies to turn its back on the Japanese traditions. In the year 1998, after years of poor performance, the company started to transform out-dated practices. The principal agents of change included a group of administrators who had wide-ranging understanding of Matsushita’s overseas operations. It was as a result of Japan’s steadily falling economy and political crises.
The changing Japanese culture and embracing of a capitalistic approach to national development was marked with both active and negative consequences. Due to the cultural changes, there was an increase in public corruption scandals, bribery, and other political crises. Japan’s economic and political crises began in the year 1989 when the country experienced stagnation in growth. It resulted in a fall in real wages and an increase in unemployment rates. In the early 1990s, unemployment rates in Japan reached its highest in history during those still in the job market experiencing little bonuses and less overtime pay. Other notable changes in Japanese economy in the early 90s included rising prices of consumer goods, falling domestic demand for locally made products and a decline in national industrial production. Despite a stable and rising demand for Japanese products by Western countries, export to Asian countries decline by 51 percent during Japan’s economic recession of the early 90s (Keith, & Miyuki, 2004).
However, even with the essential changes in the traditional Confucian cultural values, the fundamental Confucian values were not transformed to a great extent. The reason for this is because the aspects of loyalty, honesty, and reciprocal obligations were not altered even after adapting the modernized approach to Confucianism. Therefore, employees whose actions were contrary to the traditional fundamental aspects of Confucianism were judged as unethical.
The moral question faced by Matsushita of discarding the traditional methods of doing business and adapting modern approaches to business was a national issue. It is because most of the Japanese companies and government organizations were faced with a similar situation. The early 90s marked a significant stage in the evolution of the Japanese business culture due to the recession that Japan faced during that period. The smooth transition of beliefs and cultural values also ensured stability of business operations in Japan. The reason for this is, if the transition could have been quick and rough, most Japanese employees could have started to question the traditional Confucian cultural values (Toyohiro & Clegg, 1998).

Conclusion

The country of Japan has experienced tremendous growth after the Second World War. The Japanese post-war generation viewed their fifth-century cultural practices and ideology as the best to employ to rebuild fast enough. The country of Japan rose again to be one of the world’s highest exporters and manufacturers of electronic appliances in less than sixty years. The most significant culture that enabled Japan to hold onto its people and obtain knowledge to become consistently stronger each year was the use of the Confucianism ideology and values. The Confucian cultural values are fundamentally derived from honesty, good morals and honesty, and reciprocal obligation. If it were taken as a religion as explained by Max Weber, Confucian cultural values are not associated with the belief in a supreme being or an afterlife like Buddhism and Hinduism.
The traditional Japanese culture of Confucianism that was also adopted by many Japanese companies such as Matsushita was the primary factor that resulted in economic growth in the 50s and 80s. The same cultural values later became a liability to the country and the companies that had employed the cultural values. During the periods of economic slow-down, companies were obligated to transform their methods of doing business and rationalize processes where necessary in order to ensure survival. For Matsushita, Rationalizing business processes meant changing its well-established company culture and acting contrary to its values. Since traditional methods of doing business could be cost inefficient to the enterprise, Matsushita had to seek for ways of modernizing its traditional Confucian values. At that time, the company also needed to employ the younger generation in order to replace the retiring generation. In order for the company to attract the emerging workforce, it was reasonable to the company to create several employment packages that the employees can choose. It ensured employee needs were well satisfied by the by the employment package they chose (Singh, 2007).
The fundamental activators of cultural changes in Japan in late 20th century were the emerging new generation of employees who were born after 1964. This generation of workers was said to lack commitment to the traditional Confucian Cultural values and inconsiderate of the country’s economic collapse. One of the major contributors to the emerging generation’s changing values could have been as a result of growing up in a wealthier environment than their parents. The changes in cultural practices within the Japanese were characterized by fewer marriages during the period of 1975 to 1995 and later marriages. The new generation of employees also did not want to be tied up in one job position, but wanted freedom to move from one company to another, unlike their parents.

References

Bell, D. (2003). Confucianism for the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Giachetti, R. (2010). Design of Enterprise Systems: Theory, Architecture, and Methods.
London: CRC Press.
Hill, W. (2007). International Business: Competition in the Global Marketplace. New York: McGraw Hill.
Keith, J., & Miyuki, T. (2004). The Changing Face of Japanese Management. New York: Springer. Miami: CRC Press.
Mathews, G. (2012). Japan’s Changing Generations: Are Young People Creating a New Society? Vancouver: Simon Fraser University.
Sawada, J. (1993). Confucian Values and Popular Zen: Sekimon Shingku in Eighteenth Century Japan. Hawaii: Hawaii University Press.
Singh, N. (2007). Eastern and Cross Cultural Management. Kentucky: University of Louisville.
Toyohiro, K., & Clegg, S. (1998). Transformations of Corporate Culture: Experiences of Japanese Enterprises. Sydney: Walter de Gruyter.
Yumiko, I. (2013). Rethinking Identity in Modern Japan: Nationalism as Aesthetics. New York: Routledge.