Technology and Participation in Japanese Factories

Abstract

Why are Japanese factories so productive? This article explores the reasons by comparing 50 plants studied in 1972, when the basic patterns of Japanese management were first securely in place. The principal finding of a 1972 survey was largely reconfirmed in a 1983 restudy: The productivity level of plants is correlated not only with technical-economic factors, but also with human relations factors. Both technical-economic and human factors explain equal amounts of variance in productivity. This finding is important because the historical pattern of industrialization in the West has often sacrificed human relations for efficiency. That productivity and employee morale is highest in mass-production plants contradicts Western experience and offers hope that technological advance need not result in alienation of employees. By fully utilizing their human resources, Japanese factories have succeeded in mass producing goods of low cost and high quality. One method commonly used was quality circles. Surprisingly, the more workers attributed influence to managers, instead of vice versa, the more productive the factory. Thus participation in Japanese factories seems to occur in a more modern hierarchical framework than advocated in the Western model of worker democracy.