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Notes that the practice of Japanese management contributed to Japan’s renovation from the ashes of the Second World War to become one of the world’s economic leaders, and at the same time, expand the proficiency of Japanese police administration. Identifies, through Ouchi’s Management Theory Z, three commonalties to Japanese police operations and the practices of Japanese corporations: groupism, seniority, and non‐specialized career paths. Concludes with a discussion on implementing Japanese management and policing with American community‐oriented policing.

For the last few years Japan has been the rage of many scholars who, with little or no business experience in their own culture, let alone in Japan, have turned Japanese management into a panacea for the ills of Western management. These scholars, many of whom have either relied on Western analytical tools which tend to be culture bound or have simply exploited their own Japanese heritage, have not only done the West a disservice, but have also succeeded in doing an even greater disservice to the Japanese. It is ironic that these rosy pictures of Japanese management perfection have come at a time when many Japanese would like to scrap their authoritarian management system in favour of a more “democratic” one.

In October 1982 I was invited to teach Japanese to the managing director of a high‐tech company based in the North West of England. It meant in fact devising a specific 40‐hour course for him from scratch at the Manchester Business School. There were a number of reasons for this necessity. First, there was not (nor is there still) a satisfactory short introductory course on Japanese which caters for businessmen, secondly, Japanese was, in my opinion, not a language that readily lends itself to the so‐called direct method of tuition: hence I had to invent a way of teaching it so that the managing director — I will call him Ted — gained insights into the nature of Japanese as a decidedly non‐European human communication system|2|; further, I had to take account of Ted's own relationships with his agent and his customers in Japan. A final consideration was this: I could scarcely speak a word of Japanese myself!

For many years, the achievements of Japanese industry were regarded in Britain as remarkable, enviable perhaps, but essentially irrelevant. The arguments always put forward by British managers to dismiss the possibility of learning from Japan were that Japanese workers, Japanese industrial relations, and many features of Japanese social life, were fundamentally different from British, and were essential to the success of Japanese manufacturing methods. With the arrival of Japanese manufacturing subsidiaries in Britain, many of which appear to be flourishing, those arguments have become weaker and British management has begun to look at the Japanese management approach with a more appreciative and acquisitive eye.

Japanese business people face a unique situation in figuring out if and how to incorporate the use of e‐mail in their business practices. While e‐mail has many advantages as a tool or corporate communication, Japanese people seem not to fully enjoy such advantages because of their language habits. E‐mail was born and developed in the US, and when we look into the reason, we can see why it collides with Japanese business customs and the language habits of Japanese. In e‐mail no immediate response from the receiver is expected, as it is in speech. In order to write effective e‐mail, one should put oneself in the shoes of the recipient.

Throughout the growth period of Japanese manufactured exports, from the 1960s to the late 1980s, cultural arguments abounded to explain the influence of Japanese management practices and their role in Japan’s competitiveness. The conclusions drawn were that Japanese organisations and management practices would not be transferable to foreign environments, since their cultural advantages could not be maintained. In addressing the question of intercultural transferability, this article presents a theoretical perspective on the issues of management practice as a means of identifying the causes and constraints inherent in the transfer of the Japanese model to the West and in particular to the UK. The theoretical propositions are underpinned with reference to empirical studies and hopefully identify areas for further research.

The practice of organized corporate planning in major Japanese enterprises is more sophisticated, further developed, and better accepted than most Westerners recognize. Just as we can learn from Japanese management, we can also learn from Japanese corporate planning. Our research reveals that formal planning was started in Japan before most American or European managers embraced the concept, that the best Japanese practices represent the forefront of the state of the art, and that the current emphasis in Japanese planning is highly entrepreneurial and strategic. As of the mid‐1970s, corporate planning in Japan is very popular, well integrated into the Japanese managerial system, and highly geared to diversification strategies at home and resource‐ and market‐based strategies internationally (see Appendix A). The so‐called Japanese challenge may have abated in traditional form. A study of current corporate planning practices, however, suggests that Western managers would make a mistake in discounting the challenge altogether.

Offers Western managerial psychology a synthesis of cross‐cultural perspectives on Western‐Japanese inter‐organizational conflict. Argues that Graeco‐Roman and Confucian‐Buddhist‐based cultural and communicative codes are fundamentally antagonistic, contributing to misperceptions and conflict between Western and Japanese management. Presents the briefing as a blueprint or prototype for (a) identifying roots of Western‐Japanese conflict, (b) utilizing cross‐cultural data as a means for conceptualizing a broader based Western managerial psychology cognizant of East Asian protocol, (c) developing predeparture training for Western managers anticipating long– or short‐term assignments with Japanese associates. Recommends a Z‐Communication hybrid as a means whereby seemingly dichotomous Western and Japanese communication codes presented in the briefing may be converged and negotiated, and culturally based organizational and managerial conflict reduced.

Japan is perceived in most advanced countries as the world leader in the introduction and exploitation of new management practices, particularly in the area of manufacturing. In an attempt to match Japan's economic progress other countries are seeking to introduce many of the systems which are believed to be the basis of Japanese success. In this article, certain aspects of a UK manufacturing company, which had adopted a number of practices following studies undertaken in Japan, is compared with a Japanese owned company located in the UK.

Japanese multinational corporations have been establishing subsidiaries and joint ventures in the U.S. in increasing numbers. They have used many of their own managers who bring with them Japanese attitudes and a style of management developed in Japan. When they are transferred to the U.S. they must work with, and often manage, Americans whose culture and work habits are vastly different from what they are used to.