Concerns about the competitiveness of U. S. companies led some to examine Japanese management practices for clues to the success enjoyed by many of their industries. This led to many articles and books purporting to explain the success of Japanese companies. It was in this atmosphere that Theory Z was introduced into the management lexicon.
Theory Z is humanistic approach to management approach by William Ouchi.
The key features of Japanese industrial organizations, according to Ouchi are as follows:
- Offer lifetime employment (at least for their core workers).
- Insist on mandatory retirement of core workers at age 55.
- Employ a large number of temporary employees mostly women.
- There is a high degree of mutual trust and loyalty between management and employees.
- Career paths are non-specialized with life-long job rotation as a central feature of career development.
- Decision making is shared at all levels.
- Performance appraisal is long term (i.e. the first appraisal takes place 10 years after joining the company).
- There is a strong sense of collective responsibility for the success of the organization.
- And cooperation effort rather than individual achievement is encourage.
Although Ouchi recognizes that many of the features of Japanese management could not be translated into Western industrial society, he believes that certain features could be applied in a Western context. The move from the present hierarchical type of organization to a Theory Z type organization is a process which:
· Lifelong employment prospects
· Shared forms of decision-making
· Relationship between boss and subordinate based on mutual respect
Ironically, "Japanese Management" and Theory Z itself were based on Dr. W. Edwards Deming's famous "14 points". Deming, an American scholar whose management and motivation theories were rejected in the United States, went on to help lay the foundation of Japanese organizational development during their expansion in the world economy in the 1980s.
No comments:
Post a Comment