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Focuses on the integrated use of simulation tools, particularly discrete‐event simulation, in the design and development of manufacturing systems in Japanese industry. The results are based on questionnaires and visits to seven large Japanese manufacturers and show that most of the visited companies do not use simulation to any large extent, particularly not discrete‐event simulation. Some of the reasons for this are general, while others are specific for Japan. However, the use of simulation is believed to increase in Japanese industry. Furthermore, argues that there is a large potential for increased use of advanced simulation techniques in Japanese manufacturing companies, mainly for two reasons. This would result in improved communication, reduced time‐to‐market and higher flexibility in volume and product‐mix.

The manufacturing techniques used by Japanese companies to provide a competitive advantage have been shown by Japan′s outstanding economic performance to be effective over a long period of time. This effectiveness can be measured in terms of the performance of manufacturing systems or by the way in which manufacturing effectiveness has been translated into success in the marketplace. In an effort to integrate current knowledge, a contextual model of Japanese manufacturing techniques has been constructed. These techniques are transferable from Japan. The key ingredient for success is to gain an understanding of the broad context of manufacturing culture, infrastructure and environment before expecting a transplanted or adapted Japanese system of manufacturing techniques to be effective.

Seeks to better understand the implications of Japanese management methods in non‐Japanese and non‐Western contexts. Utilizes a framework proposed by Young to assess the implementation of Japanese management practices in Singapore. Based on comparative case studies of five Japanese multinational companies in Singapore, explores their ability to use or adapt practices employed in Japan. Concludes that, on the whole, the companies successfully sought to modify features of the Singaporean environment to suit Japanese manufacturing methods, though they were forced to make some concessions to local conditions. Supports Young’s call for further research, where the ability to compare directly the experience of both Japanese subsidiaries and non‐Japanese companies seeking to adopt Japanese manufacturing techniques would be a distinct advantage.

The paper aims to describe the changes in buyer-supplier relationships among Japanese companies at the early 2000s, focusing on two critical features; long-term relationships and information sharing. In particular, the paper investigates the relationship between benefits from information-sharing activities within buyer-supplier relationships and the stability of these relationships.

The paper develops a questionnaire based on prior research related to Japanese companies and undertakes a questionnaire survey of 353 Japanese manufacturing companies (which belong to the machinery, electrical/electronics, transportation equipment, and precision industries) in 2002.

Although Japanese companies have been considered to have close relationships with their partners, the paper finds only a small proportion of buyers were willing to share sensitive information with their suppliers and/or expected to continue long-term relationships with them. In addition, an examination of factors relating to buyers' performance shows that receiving benefits from inter-organizational information-sharing activities (attending suppliers' meetings, sending engineers to suppliers, and proposing cost saving ideas) could affect buyers' incentives to sustain long-term relationships with their suppliers.

The paper provides empirical evidence of the changing nature of the buyer-supplier relationship in Japanese manufacturing companies. Specifically, the main contribution of this research is to provide empirical evidence indicating that the benefit from buyer-supplier relationships has an effect on the governance structure of these relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate gender differences in organizational commitment (OC) and the relationship between OC and rewards among employees who work for Japanese manufacturing companies within China.

This study utilized hierarchical regression analysis to examine survey data obtained from 27,854 employees who worked for 64 Japanese manufacturing companies within China.

The results reveal that autonomy and role clarity had a stronger influence, and co-worker support had a weaker influence, on OC for male employees than for female employees. These differences may be because more male employees than female employees prefer working with higher autonomy and well-defined roles than with co-worker support. After all, male employees, who place a great emphasis on independence, competition, decision-making and challenges, rely on intrinsic rewards more than social rewards.

This study used data collected from Japanese manufacturing companies to understand the differences between OC and rewards in local male and female Chinese employees. We recommend that future research uses other national affiliates to clarify the characteristics of male and female Chinese workers more objectively and to test the validity of this research.

The results of this study support revising human resource management practices within multinational enterprises to enable female and male host-country workers to contribute to their companies on a long-term basis by taking into account the differences between the cultures of the home and host countries.

Although previous research has elucidated the OC–rewards relationship in particular countries, it has not met the requirements of foreign managers from different corporate cultures who face differences in the OC–rewards relationship between their male and female employees. In this sense, this research is the first attempt to tackle this theme and contribute to the literature.

This article considers employment policy and labour relations in three Japanese manufacturing enterprises in north‐east England. In each case, the author discusses a number of features, namely, the decision of the company to locate in the north‐east, union recognition, workforce flexibility, and industrial relations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how industrial robotics fits into lean manufacturing systems. This paper presents results from case studies where Swedish and Japanese manufacturing industries have been compared in order to identify differences on how advanced manufacturing technologies and industrial robotics are utilized.

The research has been conducted via case studies where researchers from academia have worked together with industrial companies. During the case studies, the results of interviews, observations and data collection in the form of performance measures and historical production data have been analyzed.

This paper highlights some of the differences between how Swedish and Japanese companies work with industrial robotics. It also proposes some key areas where development could lead to better integration of industrial robotics into lean manufacturing systems.

This research has been performed with the intention of identifying how manufacturing industries could increase their competitiveness through industrial robot automation. The companies involved in the research project have received feedback on their automation solutions. The overall goal is to create a guideline for how to design industrial robotic work cells that can easily be integrated into lean manufacturing systems. This research area is important in order to increase competitiveness in industry. It is thus of value for both industry and the scientific community.

To provide an overview of research published in the management accounting literature on methods for cost management in new product development, such as a target costing, life cycle costing, component commonality, and modular design.

The structured literature search covered papers about 15 different cost management methods published in 40 journals in the period 1990–2013.

The search yielded a sample of 113 different papers. Many contained information about more than one method, and this yielded 149 references to specific methods. The number of references varied strongly per cost management method and per journal. Target costing has received by far the most attention in the publications in our sample; modular design, component commonality, and life cycle costing were ranked second and joint third. Most references were published in Management Science; Management Accounting Research; and Accounting, Organizations and Society. The results were strongly influenced by Management Science and Decision Science, because cost management methods with an engineering background were published above average in these two journals (design for manufacturing, component commonality, modular design, and product platforms) while other topics were published below average in these two journals.

The scope of this review is accounting research. Future work could review the research on cost management methods in new product development published outside accounting.

The paper centers on methods for cost management, which complements reviews that focused on theoretical constructs of management accounting information and its use.

The aim of this study is to propose and test a model of innovation process management and to clarify the managerial strategies required to achieve it in Japanese enterprises.

The authors conducted empirical tests of the model using the data from the questionnaire surveys of Japanese companies, and an illustrative case study.

It was found that there was a high likelihood that the IP of Japanese companies thought to have had success with innovation matched the proposed model. The support for the model from the Japanese data is sufficiently strong so as to suggest that certain managerial factors should generally be implemented in order to succeed with innovation. The authors then conducted a case study on a notably prominent Japanese company, Toyota, interviewing senior executives both in Japan and Australia. This was done in order to further verify and enrich the findings of the model development and the empirical survey study. The authors found specific practices and capabilities that were statistically significant in Japan's manufacturing companies in general, which were also deeply engrained within Toyota in particular. The importance of structured process in Toyota in particular and generally in the Japanese manufacturing sector was confirmed, comprising scanning, idea occurrence, strategy formulation, resource procurement, implementation and value creation.

This study is one of few that shows the particular approach used in Japanese manufacturing companies. That systematic approach led Japanese manufacturing companies to be at the forefront of innovation for three decades from 1975, and able to successfully expand internationally.

The objective of this research is to examine to what extent Japanese recruitment practices are introduced and practiced in the auto manufacturing companies in Malaysia, since the implementation of the Look East Policy.

The process involves the gathering of both primary and secondary data, but the main method is a primary data survey. The approach is to target local enterprises as much as possible in the collection of primary data through a set of questionnaires, as well as in‐depth interviews with the human resource (HR) directors and some employees of each company.

It appears that the Malaysian manufacturing companies have not designed their recruitment practices after those of the Japanese. There is no one single model of recruitment practices operating in Malaysia, either among Japanese joint ventures or local enterprises. However, the findings do suggest the existence of some consistent sets of recruitment behavior among the companies, though it cannot be said with much confidence that these patterns are indeed representative of Malaysian recruitment behavior.

Research has been limited to the manufacturing industry only.

HR practitioners can use the outcome of the study to gauge the adaptability of certain elements of Japanese recruitment practices to the Malaysian workplace.

This paper offers an insight into the applicability of Japanese recruitment practices and offers practical help to HR practitioners embarking on new recruitment policies.