Management and culture: The Asian way - Part II:

Bottom-up process of decision-making

Wendell W Solomons

“Chinese leaders tend to control information and restrict subordinates’ participation to maintain their status in the organization. However, these authoritarian leaders allow [a] few subordinates whom they trust to share corporate information and participate in some decision-making processes. Thus, two characteristics can describe the Chinese view of leadership. First traditional Chinese leadership style tends to be authoritarian. Second, the Chinese style of participative leadership is affected by Guanxi, which means interpersonal relations between leaders and subordinates.’

Leadership in Japan

Better productivity is provided by total quality management. Picture by Sudath Malaweera

“The Japanese concept of participative leadership is also noteworthy. Due to the high level of economic productivity of Japanese organizations, many American scholars began to be interested in the Japanese style of participative leadership communication (e.g., Keys & Miller, 1982; Pascale & Athos, 1981; Stewart et al., 1986). According to Keys and Miller (1982), Japanese leadership is effective because the Japanese style of participative decision-making has resulted in ‘higher levels of motivation, delegation of decision-making commitment and intrinsic job satisfaction’. Ouchi (1981) also argued that Japan is a collectivistic culture. Thus, Japanese organizations would emphasize collective decision-making and collective responsibility. Hirokawa (1981) used a communicative perspective to define the Japanese style of participative leadership communication. Japanese organizational leaders should act as effective communicators in organizations.’

“Japanese organizations become effective system because managers encourage and facilitate the flow of information among organizational members. Japanese leaders make efforts to maintain harmony within the organization and to adopt a ‘bottom-up process of decision-making’ to be available to their employees.’

“In the Japanese RINGI procedure, a proposal is initiated by a leader in a lower echelon, and sent up to the top for approval through the chain of command, eventually to be brought back to the lower echelon on a top-down basis after having been approved. The proposal thus approved is ready for execution by the initiator.’

“In this procedure, the person who handles the process of initiating a proposal is performing the function of the staff and he turns into a leader of the line organization at the point at which the proposal is executed.”

As Dr Ming-Yi Wu suggests above, culture plays a role in management but the recession has flashed us an insight. Finance capital may play a large role in industry. I mention this because HONDA demonstrated more efficiency, as have other Japanese firms though their production lines in the USA are manned by North American (to speak of culture).

Today’s crisis which has hit firms such as GM (it has asked for tax-payer hand-outs) questions the frames of reference of textbooks available for management training. The textbooks had been gradually set aside under 30-years of informal, neoliberal principles.

Be free to choose (1) Grab as much as you can; scam your own colleagues, employees and customers if necessary (Enron, WorldCom)

Be free to choose (2) The secret of success is finding someone to blame. You must obviously escape responsibility for loss being tracked down to you.

The neoliberals’ narcissistic appeal leads to ‘a war of each against the other.’ This was proposed by pamphleteer Thomas Hobbes so that the British king could better subdue his subjects. Hobbes was rejected by 17th Century statesmen only to be enforced, as we see, in the 20th Century by Great Communicator Ronald Reagan accompanied by Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. Contamination was spread to other nations through ‘reforms’ branded ‘Open Economy’ (developing world) and ‘Shock Therapy’ (the post-Soviet space and Eastern Europe but excluding GDR).

After those excursions, we can round off with survival hints for the organization -

(A) One way out of the now crumpled Manager of Business Administration courses of study is to go in for Management by Walking Around (MBWA.) This allows the manager to cease hiding behind frosted glass with a Personal Assistant on guard at the door. This manager walks around and sees all hands on deck.

(B) To turn to formalizing such management systems, the Japanese Ringi process described above by Dr Ming-Yi Wu will be found no less useful than the 5S system that has already spread from Japan. A distant Government facility, the Kariyamaditta District Hospital, won the 5S award in Sri Lanka in 2009. The 5S system deserves more study than it has previously received.

(C) Still better productivity is provided by Total Quality Management (TQM). To refer to the names of famed porcelain makers Wedgewood and Royal Doulton - the crisis has blocked the firms. In contrast, TQM keeps Noritake’s production of high quality porcelain moving on.