What happened to Japanese style management?

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Japanese style management was venerated in business schools and books as the way to build successful enterprises. Japanese companies validated this assumption by capturing worldwide market share in diverse products, such as automobiles and electronics, writes P Reed Maurer, long time pharma industry watcher who is president of International Alliances Limited, in his regular exclusive insight for The Pharma Letter.

A few naysayers have suggested Japanese management practices worked well in a homogeneous society like Japan, but would not transplant well in societies with a high level of diversity. With the benefit of 40-plus years of hindsight let’s review, the hype and reality of Japanese style management.

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