German Managers Research Articles

Market entry in Japan barriers, problems and strategies

The global strategic importance of the Japanese market can hardly be overemphasized. The presence of Western companies is in sharp contrast to this role. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on entry barriers and entry strategies in the Japanese market. German expatriates in Japan and Japanese managers perceive the overall difficulty of entry and specific barriers as being relatively high. German managers in Germany possess a biased perception of the barriers to entry, they perceive institutional barriers as being more and marketing barriers as being less important. The Japanese market is highly dynamic and competitive. A transfer of experiences from Western markets involves high risk. Endurance and commitment are the most important success factors, short term orientation and lack of flexibility are likely to lead to failure. The marketing performance of German companies is not well geared to the needs of the market. While German companies have strengths in quality, image and innovativeness, their position with regard to service, delivery and distribution is very weak. Market entry in Japan certainly is worth while the devotion of substantial resources and management capacity. But only an attack which is full-hearted and committed is likely to succeed.

Review Article : Jean Millar: British Management versus German Management: A comparison of Organizational Effectiveness in West German and UK Factories

Review Article : Jean Millar: British Management versus German Management: A comparison of Organizational Effectiveness in West German and UK Factories

Controversy in German Management: The Harzburg Model Experience

German management researchers have challenged the Harzburg Model of “leadership in a co-worker relationship” on both ideological and behavioral grounds. German critics propose a humanistic form of participative leadership as an alternative, but many German managers still seek a model that retains greater management control. American managers and researchers may be encouraged to collaborate with German management theorists in developing leadership models that contribute to high worker satisfaction and productivity within the value framework of Western industrial societies.

Controversy in German Management: The Harzburg Model Experience

Controversy in German Management: The Harzburg Model Experience

Labor‐Management Cooperation and the West German System of Codetermination

The purpose of this article is to assess recent developments in Mitbestimmung within the Federal Republic, to analyse the role which codetermination plays in the German firm and economy, to examine the attitudes of German management and labor toward the system, and to speculate about possible future changes in the laws regarding labor participation.

Book Review Section

McCormick, Ernest J. Job Analysis: Methods and Applications.Arvey, Richard D. Fairness in Selecting Employees.Kerr, Clark and Rosow, Jerome M. (Eds.)Hepworth, Andrew and Osbaldeston, Michael. The Way We Work: A European Study of Changing Practice in Office Job Design.Edwards, Richard. Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century.Karl F. Simpson, Jr. Professor/Business A dministration Bethel College North Newton, KansasDesatnick, Robert L. The Expanding Role of the Human Resources Manager.Greenwood, James W. III and Greenwood, James W., Jr. Managing Executive Stress: A Systems Approach.Yoder, Dale and Heneman, Herbert G., JR. (Eds.) ASPA Handbook of Personnel and Industrial Relations.Dailey, Charles A. and Madsen Ann M. How to Evaluate People in Business: The Track‐Record Method of Making Correct Judgments.Schrank, Robert. (Ed.) American Workers Abroad.Lee, Sang M. and Thorp, Cary D., Jr. (Eds.) Personnel Management: A Computer‐Based System.Mink, Oscar G., Shultz, James M. and Mink, Barbara P. Developing and Managing Open Organizations: A Model and Methods for Maximizing Organizational Potential.Thompson, Frank J. (Ed.) Classics of Public Personnel Policy.Rowland, Kendrith, London, Manuel, Ferris, Gerald and Sherman, Jay L. (Eds.) Current Issues in Personnel Management.Hultman, Ken. The Path of Least Resistance: Preparing Employees for Change.Bradford, Leland P. and Bradford, Martha I. Retirement: Coping with Emotional Upheavals.Sell, R. G. and Shipley, Patricia (Eds.) Satisfactions in Work Design: Ergonomics and Other Approaches.Millar, Jean. British Management versus German Management: A Comparison of Organizational Effectiveness in West German and UK Factories.Pendergrass, Virginia E. (Ed.) Women Winning: A Handbook for Action Against Sex Discrimination.Peskin, Dean B. Sackedl What to Do When You Lose Your Job.Denova, Charles C. Test Construction for Training Evaluation.Cooper, Cary L. (Ed.) Behavioral Problems in Organizations.Roxe, Linda A. Personnel Management for the Smaller Company: A Hands‐On Manual.Cinnamon, Kenneth and Farson, Dave. Cults and Cons: The Exploitation of the Emotional Growth Consumer.Francis, Dave and Young, Don. Improving Work Groups: A Practical Manual for Team Building.LeBreton, Preston P., Bryant, Vernon E., Zweizig, Douglas L., Mid‐daugh, DaN G., Bryant, Anita Gras and Corbett, Tricia C. (Eds.) The Evaluation of Continuing Education for Professionals: A Systems View.

Rulers of the Ruhr: Leadership and Authority in German Big Business Before 1914

The rise of heavy industry and its managerial elite in the German Empire and in the United States provides stimuhting parallels and contrasts. Professor Spencer discusses the social constraints under which a professional management class developed in the German coal, iron, and steel industry during the generation before World War I. Ranking distinctly below the landed aristocracy and the governmental bureaucracy (both of which they would gladly have emulated), and preoccupied with the maintenance of order in the midst of rapid economic and social change, German managers used their power and influence to sustain and manipulate existing systems of authority, and came to play no broader role in the development of their commonwealth than did their American counterparts.

Matching German Culture and Management Style: A Book Review Essay

Matching German Culture and Management Style: A Book Review Essay

Matching German Culture and Management Style: A Book Review Essay

Managers and management consultants in West Cermany, while cognizant of American management literature and practice, applied their own unique organization development systems and management styles in accomplishing the German “economic miracle”. The Harzburg Model illustrates a distinctive adaptation of Management by Objectives to the German cultural and economic content. Recent social and economic changes may require further adaptations in German management styles.

The RKW: A new approach towards technology transfer. methods for the promotion of innovation in small- and medium-sized companies

The ‘Rationalisierungskuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft’ (RKW) is a German management institute and productivity centre. The RKW analyses and promotes rationalisation measures, assists mainly small- and medium-sized enterprises in the rationalisation of firms and plants, and supports adaptation, cooperation and expansion efforts, as well as the introduction of new processess and products. RKW services — provided by the central office in Frankfurt a.M. and the regional centres in the Länder — are not so much dependent on progress in the fields of science, research and technology, but rather on the analysis and determination of short-term and long-term development trends and of the demand situation of companies and branches of industry, and on the transfer into practice of new knowledge pertaining to rationalisation. The main instruments of the services of the RKW are consulting operations on selected problems of individual enterprises in connection with work in the fields of information, documentation, management training, inplant training, and systematic performance control. The horizontal and vertical organisation and coordination of these measures are an example for integrated technology transfer where scientific and technical knowledge, products, and inventions are not only transferred in a onw-way process from science into the economy but where, through organisational changes in connection with supporting and integrating measures, both areas interact with each other. In this respect the RKW differs from other institutions such as the National Research Development Corporation in the UK or the NASA Technology Utilization Program in the USA.

Power sharing at senior management levels

The paper presents research findings on decision making and differences in skill perception between 55 dyads of German managers of large organizations. These findings are related to research on carefully matched samples in the U.S. and U.K. The data, while still confined to two variables (two vertical and one horizontal method of measuring power sharing, and two ways of measuring perceptual differences between closely related decision makers), confirm the validity of a contingency model of managerial decision making and power sharing.

Appraisal of the Report “German Management: Challenges and Responses”

Appraisal of the Report “German Management: Challenges and Responses”

German Management: Challenges and Responses—A Pragmatic Evaluation

German Management: Challenges and Responses—A Pragmatic Evaluation

“The Dying Middle”: Weimar Germany and the Fragmentation of Bourgeois Politics

On September 14, 1930, the National Socialist German Workers' Party led by Adolf Hitler scored its first national triumph by polling over six million votes and winning more than a hundred seats in the German Reichstag. Its gains came mainly at the expense of the established bourgeois parties. The success of the National Socialists stemmed primarily from the ability of Hitler and his colleagues to articulate the anxieties and frustrated ambitions of the German middle class. These anxieties grew out of a multitude of factors, of which the world economic crisis was the most spectacular. But the dramatic character of the world economic crisis has generally obscured the extent to which these anxieties were the product of certain long-range factors present in the structure of German society ever since the end of the previous century. In the period before World War I the German economy underwent a series of changes which resulted in a partial rationalization of its productive and distributive processes. This process was accelerated during the course of World War I and reached a climax in the middle of the 1920's before the world economic crisis deprived German management of the capital it needed for the purposes of rationalization.

Authority and Organization in German Management. Heinz Hartmann

<i>Authority and Organization in German Management</i>. Heinz Hartmann

Authority and Organisation in German Management

Authority and Organisation in German Management

Book Review: Labor-Management Relations: Authority and Organization in German Management

Book Review: Labor-Management Relations: Authority and Organization in German Management

Authority and Organization in German Management.

Authority and Organization in German Management.

Authority and Organization in German Management.

Authority and Organization in German Management.

Authority and Organization in German Management.Heinz Hartmann

<i>Authority and Organization in German Management.</i>Heinz Hartmann