Implementation of strategic plans: a comparison of British and Japanese production managers

Abstract

Refining the learning style of a company is one of the promising ways to build up sustainable competence. However, as a first step, one has to know one's current learning style and we think ‘style’ can be understood more clearly by comparing one's own with the styles of others—akin to bench-marking. The main theme of this paper is to clarify two different learning styles, namely the Japanese and the British as derived from data from their middle management personnel in production firms. We were concerned to obtain data from mono-culture firms. Two large surveys were carried out—one in the UK (to 621 managers: 24.2% response rate), and the other in Japan (to 1000 managers: 39.1% response). The analyses have revealed that the UK and the Japanese managers were quite different in some respects. For instance, the British managers seem to be more participatory in their style compared with the Japanese. They were similar in others—with both sets of managers saying they learn better by carrying out extensive monitoring and giving explanations thereafter to their subordinates. We conclude by noting that the ‘strengths and weaknesses’ are a sort of “lego” system: they could be complementary building blocks. This might indicate potential trouble points in Joint Ventures between the Japanese and the British—or strengths, if both sides can learn about their strategic fit.