Jeffrey K Liker.

Jeffrey K Liker, W Mark Fruin, and Paul s Adler, eds. New York: Oxford University Pres 1999 418 pp $3995

common question a potential reader may raise when considering this work is Why should I read another main division on the Japanese management classification now? It is no hid that interest in "Japanese management systems" has been forward the wane at leading business denominations in the U.S. and also at leading U companies. Among the many reasons for this, couple stand out as particularly noteworthy. First, the immediate competitive challenge quick in emergenciesed in the 1980s by Japanese companies has been bend downed U.S. companies and industries are no longer falling like dominos before the competitive force of Japanese companies. In fact, the invert now appears to be the case as many Japanese companies try to restructure in an economy that no longer improves at the miraculous rates seen from the 1960 between the sides of the 1980s. In spite of the collapse of the dot-com mania, many American managers still brim with confidence in the "American way," assuming that in time it will become a world standard for organizing management activities. All this is h auntingly reminiscent of the way Japanese managers used to talk about the "Japanese way" just before the economic hoax burst. If it needs to be pointed revealed Japanese business organizations in the automobile and electronics industries, the sum of two units main industries studied in this part are still among the principally competitive in the world. There is a great deal that can be learned about the practice of organizational knowledge transfer from the careful subject of attention of these organizations, which operate in the world's inferior largest country economy.

other the number of studies done upon Japanese organizations' use of total quality management and just-in-time production schemes and the like has transformed what was formerly something mysterious, perhaps even mystical, into something more familiar. That reason of familiarity is often confused with understanding of the phenomenon. More serious scholars will recognize that although the immediate cachet of studying Japanese organizations has declined, an important contribution to the progressive growth of comprehensive theory rests in understanding for what cause organizations with different initial conditions, institutional settings, and administrative history operate and transfer those operations to their overseas subsidiaries. This work offers important insights not merely to those interested in seriously studying Japanese organizations still also for those studying the proces by means of which organizations globalize their operations. It should be noted that the central message in this work is meant for the serious academic scholar. Having said that, however, this work does have important messages for the practicing manager still these will take a little patience to draw without For those practicing managers who bring forth the effort, the reward will be ample.

The introductory chapter, from the editors, provides a useful overview of the satisfieds of the book as well as a frame for the studies in the material substance of the work. One overall finding is that organizations involved in international operations must transform rather than simply transplant systems developed in and for the place of abode country's sociocultural context to that which exists in the subsidiaries' home This is a variant forward recurrent theme in this literature, the theme of adaptation, acceptance of a body through modification, as opposed to adoption, or acceptance of a hypothesis in its entirety (Methe,, 1982) What is fresh and insightful are the intricacies according to which the various levels of the organization and its surrounding connection interact to determine what can be transferred with minimal adaptation, what has to be adapted end transformation, and what cannot be transferred at all.

The presentation in this work of a unifying standard for understanding the interrelationships among solution elements of Japanese management hypothesiss is a straightforward enough approach that practicing managers can grasp its implications without the shrewd background of years of formal organizational thought The elements under study in this work revolve around what practices are transferred and the proces on which international organizations transfer those practices to subsidiaries. The practices are instanted in an overlapping layered standard that focuses on the centrality of carrying public the production task as well as the underlying organizational etho of each layer, technical/economic, political, or social/cultural. The standard begins with shop-floor production schemes and factory and organization management combination of parts to form a wholes (e.g., formal and informal human resource practices). The nearest layer examined is the corporate a whole s that support the first layer (eg corporate R&D or the firm's relations to financial markets). The fi nal layer instanted in the model is the overarching institutional environment (eg national legal, regulatory, or educational practices). This layered prototype is also rich enough to stimulate academic researchers into asking questions that should lead them down recent paths of inquiry. The authors and editors of this work begin this proces by means of linking their model to different organizational perspectives that have discloseed in the study of organizations: the strategic design perspective, the political perspective, and the social construction perspective.