JAPANESE PARTICIPATIVE MANAGEMENT - OR HOW RINJI SEIDO CAN WORK FOR YOU.

The remarkable achievements of Japanese business have stimualted the curiosity of American managers and encouraged them to find out what makes Japanese enterprise so successful. The paper shows how Japanese management philosophy and decision making are fundamentally different from the American equivalents. Decisions originate at the lowest management level and move horizontally or vertically from one management group to the next as consensus is achieved. After all the groups concerned have reached consensus, the ″decision document″ is passed to the highest authority for his ″stamp of approval.″ The paper discusses some of the underlying motivations and factors involved in this process, why it is successful, and how American maangers can adapt aspects of it to the benefit of their corporations.