Japanization and/or Toyotaism?

Abstract

Recently there has been a proliferation of neologisms to describe the Japanese model of management and its diffusion to other countries - for example, Toyotaism, and Japanization. Some have argued that such terms can be used to describe the direction in which, at least, British industry or work organization has been heading. This paper reviews some of this `Japanization' literature and shows that there is a good deal of confusion and lack of precision in the terms being used. Rather than necessarily abandoning all such terms, the author makes a case for retaining both Toyotaism and Japanization but also for clearly differentiating between them. His starting point is that Toyotaism should be limited to the just-in-time management method (JIT) and that this is a model even in Japan. This should be separated, conceptually, from the context in which it has thus far been successfully embodied, namely Japanese employment and supplier relations. The term Japanization can then be used to refer to the evolution and diffusion of Japanese-style employment and inter-firm relations. The author then (a) draws out some of the implications of these conceptions, including the point that the diffusion of JIT in Japan itself has been under-researched and misunderstood, and (b) assesses through the case of the car industry, the extent to which Toyotaism and Japanization apply to recent developments in British industry. Whilst developing JIT has become important to managements, there is little evidence of any serious attempts, with the exception of the Japanese Nissan (U.K.), to change systems of supervision, training, assessment and payment along the lines which the author suggests are central to the Japanese systems. He concludes that it seems premature to talk of a Japanization of work systems and that there is a need to acknowledge the limited nature of the concepts of both Toyotaism and Japanization.