Mechanistic vs. Organic Management Systems: A Comparative Study of Adaptive Patterns of American and Japanese Firms *

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the management systems of United States and Japanese firms and to demonstrate that, even considered in the aggregate, they do differ in significant ways. It focuses on discern broad and pervasive differences—profiles—between American and Japanese firms based on average responses made by the managers of each group. The strong competitive power of Japanese firms in electronics, automobile, steel, and other industries during the last decade, and their rapid successful adaptation to the first and the second oil crises, have forced a drastic revision of the prevalent view that Japanese management systems were somehow out of date and inefficient. Integrative contingency theory suggests that differences in organizational environment bring about, or must correspond to, differences in the internal characteristics of organizations. Product market, input market, and interorganizational relationships with other organizations are the major components of the business environment. Every firm has a common objective: profit maximization or the maximization of net present value.

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