FREE ESSAY ON JAPANESE ORG. CULTURE

JAPANESE ORG. CULTURE

Organizational Culture
...Japanese culture is very different from ours. For one thing, it consists almost
entirely of Japanese people. (Barry, 43) Perhaps that seems an obvious statement, but how
true it is. The culture of any business, organization, or even government is made up of
the people that make the organization. Throughout this paper we will use the culture of
the Japanese government as a medium, to see how culture affects the management and
decision-making processes. Specifically we will look at how the culture affected the
decisions of the government, and how those decisions affected the very lives of the
Japanese people on a very dreadful day just over six years ago.
A 20-second earthquake, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, devastated the city of Kobe,
Japan on the morning of January 17th, 1995. Many were still sleeping at 5:46 when the
earthquake struck, but they would soon awaken to find great frustration as the lack of
public and personal transportation, communication lines, and open roads became
increasingly apparent. Indeed, Japan's 6th largest city was facing a problem, and one
that needed to be addressed immediately. (Adamson, par 1)
q Is America an Autocracy?
You have probably read in a newspaper, or watched on television a documentary about a
natural disaster on American soil. It could be anything from an East-coast hurricane, to
a Mid-west tornado, to a California earthquake. Typically, by the time you are just
hearing about the event, the President of the United States will have already declared a
state of emergency. Local and national armed forces are immediately dispatched to help
assist in any way possible. The way that the President took the information available at
the time, and promptly made the decision reflects an autocratic leadership style, as
defined by Dessler. (301) Why wasn't there a session of congress held to determine if it
was really necessary to declare the emergency? Why weren't the citizens allowed to vote
whether or not they deemed it wise spending of their tax-dollars? The President of the
United States (obviously, by his title) has the authority to make decisions that affect
the United States. Our culture allows him to have the power that he does, whether he is
backed by congress or not. We allow him to declare a state of emergency because our
culture defines a state of emergency as a problem that needs to be fixed. We do not
define it as an international embarrassment, nor do we define it as an internal breakdown
of part of our society.
q Culturally defining the problem...?
The Japanese government happened to define their problem a little differently. They
looked at the disaster as a weak link to their strong nation. They were embarrassed and
unwilling to accept help from foreign nations who readily offered. As a matter of fact,
due to cultural boundaries, response time to this whole disaster was so bad that it took
over 5 years to finally fix all the damage.
There was no immediate response when the quake subsided. Four hours passed before the
governor of the Hyogo Prefecture asked for help from the Japanese Defense forces. It took
the JDF another 5 hours to respond and a full two days before they arrived in Kobe in
force. Japanese Prime minister Tomiichi Murayama all but confessed that a lack of
preparedness and bureaucratic bungling significantly delayed recovery efforts. Teams of
doctors arrived only to be held up at the airport for three days because they did sot
have the necessary license to practice in Japan. It took 2 days to get necessary
permission to have 50,000 blankets shipped in from the United States. ...Of the 60
nations that offered assistance to the Japanese government, only 20 offers were
accepted.(Nevola, par. 5)
q All in favor...
Perhaps a closer look at the leadership style implemented would help explain why the
reaction time was so bad. Most social, moral, and governmental standards are based around
conformity. It was understood by foreigners living in the country, that meeting
scheduling was apparently a great process that slowed everything. Unconfirmed reports
state the before any issues directly related to the earthquake were resolved, absolute
conformity had to be reached as pertaining to when the committee would be able to meet
again, and the number one item of every agenda was the same. The leadership style where
information is presented to the group and then they decide together on a solution is an
extreme degree of the participative style. Maybe a more autocratic leadership would have
worked better to solve the problem at hand. Dr. Neil Chadwick points out 3 directly
related situations in which the Autocratic Leadership is successful.
? When there is an agreement that the leader has the resources and the Group is limited
? There is a time pressure or Crisis
? The Group's resistance toward the leader is minimal
Unfortunately, changing the leadership style in this crisis situation may have actually
made things worse. Japan tends to view the committee-oriented leadership styles, and even
has the old proverb that 'the nail that stands up gets pounded down. Autocracy may have
resulted in hurt feelings, resentment, internal government breakdown, or worse. We must
bear in mind the culture of an organization before we jump to conclusions as to which
leadership style will work best. 
Culture is something that can drive a business to success, when diverse, non-biased, and
properly managed. Yes, at times it can act as a barrier, but more often than not it is
the bridge that crosses over those boundaries. Organizations need to learn that if they
don't tap into those sources, then they are like a horse wearing blinders. They will
coast along comfortably and happily, completely unaware of the disasters coming at it
directly from the sides.
Bibliography
Adamson, Sharlene. First Aid Response to the Kobe Earthquake, January 17, 1995 
24 Feb. 1998. 11 June 2001 .
Barry, Dave. Dave Barry does Japan. New York: Random House, 1992.
Dessler, Gary. Management: Leading People and Organizations in the 21st Century. 2nd ed.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2001.
Nevola, John. The Shock Heard 'Round the World', 1997. 11 June 2001 .