Japanese Engineers and American Myth Makers

Abstract

J APANESE success in manufacturing and exporting has produced a steady stream of explanations for that success. Over the years, cheap labor, industrial policy, business-government links (Japan, Inc.), general trading companies (sogo shosha), high leverage (gearing), high savings rates, QC (quality control) circles, the kanban (ust in time) system, and others have been offered as keys, or even the key, to Japanese success. Some of these explanations, such as cheap labor, no longer receive a hearing. Others such as general trading companies and high gearing no longer enjoy the attention they did when first put forward. Still others such as QC circles are pushed only by special interest groups. One genre of explanation that emerged in the early 1980s is still part of popular and academic writing onjapan. It explainsJapanese manufacturing success in terms ofJapan having more engineering students, more engineers in the work force, and more engineers in management than does the U.S. or the U.K. This notion has had some of the widest publicity of any explanation forJapanese success, elements of it having figured in two State of the Union addresses during the Reagan administration.' It has been endorsed in blue ribbon commission reports in England and by the National Science Foundation in the U.S. Congressional committees have