In the Basis of Japanese Managerial Culture Is the So-Called Ringi Principle

In the basis of Japanese managerial culture is the so-called Ringi principle. It is applied in the majority of big Japanese corporations, be it Sony or in our case Nissan. This principle focuses on the consensus-oriented decision making. As Europeans, we first understood it as involvement of managers of all levels in the decision making, Japanese think of it differently. Decision is made by a senior manager and lower-rank employees simply accept it. It is not common for Japanese managers to come to their boss and express their opinion on something and especially object his decision. Reason for this might hide in great respect that Japanese employees have towards senior managers - by doubting seniors' decision, you doubt also his expertise and his ability to take the position.

We can also see the importance of seniority in the way Japanese approach promotion in the company. Rather than being promoted based on their performance, employees are promoted judging on the time they spent with a particular company. That kills-off a possibility of younger, more energetic people getting in the senior management and enhances the conservativeness present in the company. This takes us to the next important attribute of Japanese managerial practice - Lifetime Employment. People don't tend to switch jobs, preferring to stay with one company for their whole career. As mentioned above, they are awarded for their loyalty by promotion as they stay in the company longer.

Relationships with suppliers and business partners are really important and we can see it on the example of Carlos Ghosn not attending the Christmas party organised by the suppliers, it was shown as lack of respect. Japanese, however, take it further by applying Keiretsu System - basically a set of interlocking businesses and shareholdings. In the case study we saw, that before arrival of Ghosn to Nissan in 1999, the company was spending a lot of money on equity purchases of its suppliers.

Case study shows that Japanese companies are strongly subject to sectionalism - meaning that departments are somewhat isolated from each other. Every department performs its' own task and is reluctant to communicate with other. In the case of Nissan it meant that departments were not communicating when company faced problems and were unable to see the problems from different perspective, which would help to solve it. Problems that Ghos...