Culture as the critical factor in implementing innovation

Culture as the Critical Factor in Implementing Innovation

Mary Yoko Brannen

I n international management literature, the word "culture" often refers to national culture. In this article, however, I will draw

upon current anthropological theory to define culture in a different sense. By the words "culture" and "cultural," I mean a historically situated and emergent system of negotiated meanings and practices common to the people in an organization. "Culture" in this sense is endogenous- -no t given to a particular firm, but developed and shaped by the ongoing interactions of the people in the firm as well as by the strategic choices these people make.

Cultural barriers to change have become an increasingly relevant research topic as U.S. industries have begun to lose their competitive advantage in the global marketplace. The loss of market share to international competitors in tradi- tional mature industries such as automobiles and, more recently, shoes spawned a catalytic reaction among American decision makers of considering radical changes in management techniques.

The preoccupation on the part of both management scholars and practitioners with Japanese management styles is a case in point. William Ouchi's Theory Z, Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One, and Pascale and Athos' The Art of Japanese Management are just three examples of best- sellers in management literature. Spurred on by Japanese competition, American managers have begun to look more seriously at the human side of technology for answers to the problems of sluggish productivity, poor quality, and fading competitiveness. Quality circles and suggestion boxes were implemented to include the worker as a valued team member in the decision-making process. However, when such attempts to implement Japanese management techniques do not

meet immediately with favorable results, decision makers and researchers alike generally conclude that there are Japan-specific, non-transferable cultural and historical reasons why the techniques failed in the

For change to work, organizational culture must support the innovation.

United States. Such a conclusion only perpetuates the mystique surrounding the Japanese culture, emphasizing its difference and blinding us to what we might otherwise learn from the Japa- nese. In this view, culture is narrowly defined in nationally specific terms, as the very phrase "Japanese culture" implies. This underlying senti- ment is echoed in the common refrain, "We are not Japanese, so their techniques are simply not transferable to our work force."

If we are to conclude from the above state- ment that nothing can be transferred from the Japanese experience to an American setting, how are we to understand the many cases in which Japanese expatriate managers have been successful in implementing some form of "their" managerial techniques with American workers in Japa- nese-owned businesses in the United States? Cases such as the Kyocera company in San Di- ego, in which Japanese management techniques were implemented with a largely Asian work force, are rare. In most of the successful cases of Japanese-owned companies in America (for example, the YKK Zipper plant in Macon, Georgia; Kawasaki Motorcycle factory in Lincoln, Ne- braska; and Honda of America, Marysville, Ohio), management has favored a middle route in ap- plying Japanese management techniques.

Culture as the Critical Factor in Implementing Innovation 59

Nevertheless, these techniques obviously would not work in the United States if there were something essentially "Japanese" about them. Indeed, with the advent of Japanese takeovers of American companies and with more instances of Japanese management techniques being successfully implemented by American work forces, we are seeing the successful turnaround of factories that were previously struggling to stay alive.

The TPC plant located in the northeastern United States is an example of this phenomenon. Before the Japanese management acquired the plant, it had been operating three days a week

"Two-and-a-half years after the takeover, the plant is operating seven days a week, there have been no layoffs or terminations of employment, and grievances are down to two in the last year. "

and hourly workers were regularly laid off on an average of 12 weeks per year. In the final five years of U.S. management, 30 out of the 116 office workers were given termination of employment notices, and management/union relationships were strained and characterized by a reported average of three grievances a month. Two-and-a-half years after the takeover, the plant is operating

seven days a week, there have been no layoffs or terminations of employment, and grievances are down to two in the last year, In addition, the plant is undergoing a $40 million expansion of its facilities to house state-of-the-art equipment that will increase total plant capacity by more than 100 percent and provide approximately 60 new jobs for the community.

The bottom-line measure of the plant's success under the new management is the marked improvement of product quality. Since the change in management, the percentage of sales that is reimbursed to clients for poor quality mer- chandise has gone from 3 percent to .9 percent, which translates into a $1.3 million annual sav- ings for the company. Internal deviations in product quality have gone from 30-40 to 5-15 per month, resulting in a 5 percent reduction in waste.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW TECHNIQUES

C ases such as these, in which Japanese managers have successfully managed A m e r i c a n work forces toward increased

productivity, make it clear that the lack of success in implementing newer operations management

techniques cannot simply be explained by the national cultural differences of the workers. Man- agement scholars have thus searched for alternative ways of explaining the success of Japanese management with American workers. For example, in an article on Japanese manufacturing techniques, Andrew Weiss states (1984):

The superior productivity of Japanese workers compared with their U.S. counterparts is commonly attributed to cultural reasons. This is not true . . . . IT]he reality is that some straightforward management decisions explain the high productivity of Japanese workers.

Weiss asserts that such manifestations of behavior attributed to the inherent cultural proclivi- ties of the Japanese worker as lower absenteeism, greater corporate loyalty, and harder working employees are myths. His suggested alternative "realities" of Japanese productivity are more engi- neers per worker, selective hiring, benefits from steep wage profiles, substantial pay differences, and a unique capital structure. He indicates that there are simple, implementable management techniques to be learned from the Japanese that increase productivity. This point of view is not at all unique. Ebrahimpour (1985) has examined quality management in Japan and the U.S. and provided non-culturally specific recommenda- tions for quality improvement in American firms. Moreover, in a literature review of practitioner- oriented journals and business magazines within the last five years, 65 out of 78 articles focusing on quality control management in Japanese- owned manufacturing settings (in the U.S. and Japan) have shared Weiss's and Ebrahimpour's views.

Another popular explanation for the success of Japanese takeovers in the U.S. is that the Japa- nese have large amounts of money to implement the technological changes necessary to yield a positive turnaround. This suggests that if enough money is pumped into a system, success is en- sured.

Although these culturally non-specific views of Japanese management techniques help de- mystify the Japanese success story, they fail to consider important differences between U.S. and Japanese attitudes toward work that are key to the successful implementation of innovations. A recent study investigating the use of statistical process control (SPC) systems in the U.S. demon- strates this point. Bushe (1988) examined Honey- well, Boeing, Xerox, General Motors, and Ford- - all large enterprises that had pumped money into the latest quality control technology. Despite this effort, Bushe found no case in which SPC had become an accepted way of doing business. Con-

60 Business Horizons / November-December 1991

versations with manufacturing personnel in vari- ous locations over a two-year period revealed that very few operations managers appreciated the social systems aspects of this technology, and none had considered it in planning and implementation stages of the process. Bushe, having found that money was not the cure-all, conducted a qualitative field study to examine the barrier to the introduction of SPC in U.S. manufacturing. The study showed that the failure to successfully implement SPC was at least partially due to cultural barriers to change.

CULTURE AND CHANGE

T he theme of culture and its effect on change is not new. The earliest attempts to join the two themes in the field of

organizational studies are available in the socio- technical systems literature. More immediate ante- cedents to this theme come from organizational culture literature, which describes a way of seeing and consequently understanding organizations in which language, symbols, images, rituals, and anecdotes become the data used in uncovering the underlying shared beliefs and assumptions that guide behavior. There is also a significant amount of research within organizational culture literature that deals specifically with cultural change in work environments. Cultural change literature has generally focused on the relationship between a firm's culture and strategy. It examines the efficiency of a firm's culture in helping the organization realize its strategic goals. This literature has therefore tended to concen- trate on looking for gaps between a firm's existing and needed culture and identifying action plans for cultural change programs.

Although cultural change literature could contribute greatly to our understanding of how culture might play an important role in the successful implementation of technological innovations, none of the studies have directly investi- gated this issue. Moreover, the organizational change literature that deals specifically with the introduction of innovations has focused predomi- nantly on the structural effects of such innovations rather than the human resource side of the issue. In addition, most of the scholarly research on innovation in organizations tends to be multi- variate analyses of survey data, in which the relationships between a number of organizational variables and the decision to adopt an innovation are assessed. A study of publications in academic journals on organizational studies over the past five years shows no reported collaborative work done between production operation scholars and organizational management scholars. Examination of 19 current textbooks covering the field of production/operations management shows no men-

tion of the socio-technical approach to operations in the majority of cases. Only six texts mention the topic briefly.

In a recent review of operations strategy, Anderson, Cleveland and Schroeder (1989) indi- cate that work force and organization problems will require imaginative solutions by managers in the operations management and organizational behavior fields. In the absence of such interdisci- plinary studies that might serve as a basis for understanding culture as a key variable in the successful implementation of technological innovation, I went about gaining an understanding of this issue by conducting on-site research at a production facility undergoing such a change.

FIELD SITE RESEARCH

T he TPC plant is an ideal research site for investigating this socio-technical issue because the decision makers are Japanese

and the work force is American. Therefore, the successful implementation of technological innovation cannot be attributed to national culture factors alone. If Japanese managers can work with an American work force to successfully turn the factory around, it seems likely that the management techniques used would be applicable in other circumstances. The argument that there is something about an American work force that impedes the implementation of Japanese management techniques would be disproved.

The issue of quality control has general and specific implications for this study. Gener- ally, quality is seen as the competitive disad- vantage for U.S. businesses that have been losing market share and presence in industries to Japanese competition. Specifi- cally, quality control issues were the most pressing concerns of new Japanese managers at the TPC plant in the transitional phase directly following the takeover.

"if Japanese managers can work with an American work force to successfully turn the factory around, it seems likely that the manage - ment techniques used would be applicable in other circumstances. "

This study began as a series of on-site visits in which the author, accompanied by a professor of operations management, met with the vice president of operations to discuss production issues related to changes in management. These visits triggered an on-going qualitative research project to document the cross-cultural dynamics of the venture. The methodology used is ethnog- r a p h y - a n anthropological term describing a


qualitative process of inquiry using on-site par- ticipant observation, unstructured and semi-struc- tured interviews, and informal conversations to uncover and trace emergent themes. This methodology was chosen because of the exploratory nature of the study with the aim of uncovering cultural assumptions that act as barriers to change.

THE HISTORY OF THE U.S. PLANT

T he original U.S. plant was founded in 1916. The plant was run like a family business--the founders were "good with

people" and ran an organization characterized by benevolent yet authoritative leaders. Under this

"TPC took special care to gain the goodwifl and support of both the community (a large part of whom are World War II veterans) and the U.S. employees during the changeover time. "

management, employees enjoyed company parties three times a year - -a t Christmas, in the spring, and at a summer barbecue. In 1954 the company was merged with another company, and in 1957 it became a wholly owned sub- sidiary of a manufacturing and sales company. As a result of the consolidation the new corporation be-

came an organization with a total of six manufacturing plants. Between 1954 and the mid-1970s the plant experienced much growth before de- clining in productivity. It was the city's second largest employer, grossing $20 million in sales in 1979.

Corporate headquarters operated the facility on an extremely tight budget, "only spending money on equipment if it was broken." From 1981 on there were no social gatherings; hourly workers were regularly laid off; many of the office staff members were fired. Management was characterized by a hierarchical structure with senior and middle managers supervising a unionized work force made up of 120 second- and third-generation workers of mostly Polish or French-Canadian ancestry. The most common metaphor used by the hourly workers to describe the American management style was "hammer and sickle." The management/union relationship had deteriorated to an all-time low by 1 9 8 1 - grievances were up to an average of 12 per month, and a strike closed the plant for six weeks. In 1983, the plant was sold to a holding company. From 1983 until the takeover by the TPC Company in 1986, the predominant employee concern was job security.

THE HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE COMPANY

T he TPC company was founded in 1948 and has grown to become the eighth largest company in its field in Japan. The

company's home office is located in Tokyo. Its operations include a central warehouse that dis- tributes finished goods throughout Japan, a pri- mary manufacturing and converting plant, and international distribution centers.

TPC's entire operation utilizes the Kanban system of inventory control, which is based on a customer/order "pull" system. At each plant, fully automated warehouses inventory no more than 72 hours worth of finished goods, which are then distributed by truck and rail to customers in the nearby areas or shipped to a separate warehous- ing facility for distribution throughout the world. All machines in the plant are equipped with SPC monitors that ensure outputs conform to specifi- cations and inform quality control specialists of the nature or source of problems arising in the production process.

Eighty percent of TPC workers are high school recruits. Most were trained in koogyo kookoo (factory oriented, technical high schools). The mills are based on the "factory town" model, with a TPC community including a day care cen- ter/kindergarten, a Red-Cross clinic, single men's dormitories and cafeteria, married employees apartments, children's playgrounds, club houses, guest quarters, parking lots, and leisure facilities such as a mini-golf course, a baseball diamond, and a company beach. This community sur- rounds the actual factory.

TPC employees up through the rank of kacho (section head) are members of the Com- pany Union, an enterprise union. All employees wear company-provided uniforms that do not distinguish between rank. All employees are paid on a salary basis. At mid-morning and mid-after- noon work breaks TPC employees typically join together to do Japanese radio exercises.

THE TAKEOVER

W a g hen the sale was final, the new Japa- nese management replaced top man-

ement and promoted the previous plant manager and marketing manager to senior positions while retaining the American middle management and hourly workers. The new management rehired approximately 170 of the 206 blue- and white-collar workers from the previous company (the remaining 36 employees were transferred as an entire division to another plant of the former owner). There are presently 206 employees at the plant: 91 office workers and 115 hourly workers. Of the nine Japanese employees, three are in top management positions.


According to the new management, the de- termining factor in deciding to purchase the U.S. plant was the equipment and the already trained work force. In addition, a greenfield venture would have cost much more than the acquisition price, and it would have taken up to two years longer to get a new plant operating smoothly.

TPC took special care to gain the goodwill and support of both the community (a large part of whom are World War II veterans) and the U.S. employees during the changeover time. The summer before the takeover, TPC hosted a "Get Ac- quainted" picnic in the parking lot of the factory for the community. The new president introduced himself to each person with a handshake and a word of goodwill. The only setback to goodwill during the takeover was the collective bargaining agreement outcome with the union. Hourly workers were embittered by the fact that each lost an average of two weeks of paid vaca- tion leave as well as the portability of their pen- sion plan.

CULTURAL BARRIERS TO CHANGE

T he cultural barriers to change at TPC directly relating to the successful implementation of new quality control techniques

can be broken down into four categories: 1) negative images of the Japanese; 2) residual assumptions regarding work from previous management; 3) differences in Japanese and U.S. unionized labor structures; and 4) different understandings of the quality control function between Japanese and U.S. employees. Each of these barriers will now be examined.

Negative Images of the Japanese

To pave the road for successful change at the plant, TPC management had to immediately break down resistance barriers to Japanese management fostered by "horror stories" in the media that likened Japanese-owned factories to "hell camps," where employees were forced to conform with Japanese practices such as uniforms, exercises, workaholism, and putting company above family. The year before the takeover the media produced many programs on Japan focusing on issues of Japanese/U.S. trade relations. Some of the coverage was flattering, some neu- tral, and some quite unfavorable. A movie hit at the box-office during the year before the takeover, "Gung Ho," was a rather humorous yet poignant depiction of what one might expect life to be like as an American employee of a Japa- nese firm. To make matters worse, some of the hourly workers had relatives employed at the local athletic shoe factory who were experiencing layoffs and salary cuts because the company was

losing market share to factories in other "Orien- tal" countries, which employed laborers who would work at cut-rate prices.

Residual Assumptions Regarding Work from Previous Management

The "manufacturing culture" of the previous own- ers fostered three barriers to change: individualism, performance norms, and segmentation of job categories.

Individualism versus group orientation is an often quoted significant difference between American and Japanese cultural orientations. Interestingly, historical accounts of U.S. companies characterize the original "manufacturing culture" of the plant as group-centered and family-like. However, this original cultural norm was shattered by the lengthy history of animosity and lack of trust between management and workers in the second phase of the U.S.-owned company's history. The result of pro- longed adversarial relationships between management and the union was that employees exhibited an extreme version of the individualistic response to a conflict-

"To pave the road for successful change at the plant, TPC management had to immediately break down resistance barriers to Japanese management fostered by 'horror stories" in the media."

plagued work environment. They felt that all they owed the old management was their time ("Man- agement gives us nothing extra, why should we give them more?"). The result of the individualistic work orientation was that there were no group-centered programs, such as quality of work life projects, practiced at the factory. Safety programs, suggestion boxes, and problem-solving groups, a way of life for TPC workers in Japan, were foreign to the American workers before the takeover.

A related issue stemming from individualistic cultural values is that the American workers were operating from what might be called output- oriented norms of work behavior. The factory was previously organized to maximize output at the expense of change, adaptation, and learning. The standard operating procedure for the workers under former management was to produce as much as possible with the least amount of down time. This attitude led to a manufacturing culture that encouraged the worker to spend little to no time on problem solving. In contrast, the Japa- nese factory workers, trained in SPC processes, expect the public display of on-line problems

Culture as the Critical Factor in Impiementing Innovation 63

(one of the functions of the SPC monitor) and a worker-based problem-solving approach.

A final issue related to the above cultural norms is that the American workers were steeped in the tradition of segmentation of job categories. This work orientation led to the tendency to compartmentalize information and problems and thereby fostered the practice of each department dealing with its own problem in isolation. In contrast, SPC takes a comprehensive approach that requires cross-functional thinking and problem-solving procedures.

Differences in the Management/Labor Structures

"The basic difference between the Japanese and U.S. labor relations systems is that in Japan there are enterprise (or company) unions as opposed to industry unions in the United States. "

The basic difference between the Japanese and U.S. labor relations systems is that in Japan there are enterprise (or company) unions as opposed to industry unions in the United States. All other disparate traits between the two systems can be traced to this basic conceptual difference. The manifestations at TPC of the differences due to the enterprise/industry union split between U.S. and Japanese labor structures are as follows.

First, the American trade unions demand wage parity, whereas Japanese counterparts are concerned with "base-up" or percentage wage increases. Second, American unions are generally organized on an industrial or occupational basis

and emphasize the systematic categoriza- tion of jobs, whereas Japanese company unions preclude this type of categorical rigidity and favor a flexible job transfer system within the company. Third, Japa- nese management and labor are distin- guished differently from U.S. management. There is an overlap or slight blur- ring of the hierarchy and of the line be-

tween blue- and white-collar workers. Japanese workers are union members up through the rank of chief supervisor. This includes the positions of foreman and superintendent, which are non- union in the United States. This factor is empha- sized in the differences between management and labor dress habits in American and Japanese companies. In the U.S. factory, as soon as one became "management" one donned a dress shirt and tie; at TPC Japan there is no distinction in dress between management and labor. This distinction also leads to a pattern of mobility be-

tween labor and management at TPC Japan, where a large number of managerial personnel have held positions of leadership in the company union.

Different Understandings o f the Quality Control Funct ion

The basic difference in the manifestation of quality control processes in U.S. and Japanese companies is that in most American factories quality is viewed as a staff function, whereas in Japan it is carried out by line personnel who have the necessary training to engage in such functions. Origi- nally, when the U.S. company was operating profitably, it had a quality control department staffed with three technicians who worked closely with maintenarice and R&D staff persons. In 1981, when the profitability of companies began a severe downward turn, the U.S. company did away with the QC department entirely.

The quality control function at TPC is de- signed to promote the principle that every product sold should be 100 percent free of defects. TPC workers believe their challenge is to do ev- erything possible over their eight-hour shift to produce a perfect product. The key to the implementation of this philosophy is that each worker has a standard manual for the job. The worker makes sure that the process and products for which he or she is responsible falls within speci- fications by ongoing, careful examinations of the product itself and by interpreting the display on the SPC monitors. The worker passes a detailed log of events to the supervisor after the shift is completed and stays an extra 15 minutes to discuss with the following shift how the operation is running. The following shift members also come to work 15 minutes early to facilitate an overlap discussion. If there is a problem, the worker writes down the time the problem occurred, to whom it was reported, and the action taken to rectify the problem. A problem report is issued in addition to the daily log sheets in which the worker states the nature of the problem and his thoughts on its cause. At TPC Japan, work manu- als include quality definitions in addition to the standard operating and maintenance instructions. At the time of the takeover, the U.S. company addressed the issue of quality solely by using specification charts distributed to each line supervisor.

STEPS TAKEN TO BREAK DOWN THE BARRIERS

T he first step taken by Japanese management to overcome prejudices and misperceptions was to make it clear that

TPC would be run as an "American" factory.


There were to be no company exercise rituals and no mandatory company uniforms (although they were provided to those employees who wished to wear them).

The second step was to educate the employees about Japan. To accomplish this within the first year, TPC management sent all of the top American executives at the plant to Japan for a three-week acculturation program intended to inform the executives not only of the Japanese culture but also of the TPC manufacturing culture. In addition, the author conducted workshops entitled "Working with the Japanese" for all interested employees. In-depth cross-cultural training was given on an ongoing basis to the American executives and administrative assistants who would have the most contact with Japanese staff persons and clients. TPC sales personnel were given separate training workshops to inform then: of the new product lines and help them deal more effectively with their new Japa- nese clients.

Overcoming Residual Assumptions Regarding Work

To instill a group (versus individual) orientation toward work, the new management reinstated the tradition of company parties (Christmas, New Year, and a summer picnic outing). In addition, a safety program was installed (which included safety shoes for all and hard hats where needed), suggestion boxes were put in place, and quality control groups were introduced. The cultural barriers to change resulting from an output orientation and segmentation of job categories were treated as a management / labor structure issue (discussed below).

Overcoming the Management/Labor Structure Barriers

TPC management has concentrated on two major issues to overcome the labor structure barrier: monetary stability and trust. Due to the seven- day-a-week, continuous operation schedule for the last two-and-a-half years, the work force is making more money than ever. Instead of having to scrimp and save for the 12 weeks a year they would typically be laid off under the old management, the hourly workers have spent more freely without concern for the future. Management allowed the work force to continue operating a 12- hour shift schedule whereby a typical employee works three days in a row and then is off for four days. This 12-hour system means overtime wages for many employees who regularly work week- ends. Therefore, the opportunity for making even more money is present.

In addition, the new management has reno-

vated the existing machinery and has made major capital expenditures to ex- pand and improve the plant. In this case money does "talk"; to these workers, it says "job stability." There is also an increase in pride in one's job that plays a part in workers' favorable attitude

"Quality control trainers were brought over from Japan to educate the on-line workers and their managers to new issues in quafity control."

toward management. The workers are all very proud to have well-maintained and even "cutting- edge" machinery to work on.

Grievances were down to two for all of 1988. The hourly workers attribute this to the fact that there is more open communicat ion between management and workers. If there is an unfavorable issue, workers now feel they can talk to their supervisors about it and something will be done. Over the last two years the workers have had many instances of proof of the new management 's sincerity. Each worker interviewed said he felt his complaints and suggestions are now heard and acted upon. Steps taken by the management to insure worker participation in decision making include a suggestion box system and management ' s regular appearance at the union committee meetings.

Overcoming this rather formidable barrier led to the successful collective bargaining outcome in December 1988 in which two new "Japanese" concep ts - - the working foreman and flexibility l anguage- -were accepted in a majority vote by the union membership at TPC. The working foreman is an on-line attempt on the part of Japanese management to blur the distinction between administrative and production jobs - - the working foreman is a non-union position that allows for the foreman to do hands-on work along with the operators in his team. Flexibility language was introduced into the new contract so management could reserve the power to pick the crew (versus job bidding) on the new machines. In the future, flexible work assignments and job rotation will be the rule for all the work teams at the plant. Both concepts help break down individualism and segmentation barriers and make quality control an on-line, team effort at TPC.

Overcoming Different Understandings of Quality Control

The first step was for management to hire a quality control manager and send him to Japan on a three-week training program. Next, an interde- partmental team of Japanese and American employees from R&D, quality control, and mainte-


nance was put together to come up with a quality control manual to be distributed to all hour ly workers. Weekly production meetings to address issues of quality control were introduced.

Quality control trainers were brought over from Japan to educate the on-line workers and their managers to new issues in quality control. Finally, teams of hourly workers were sent to Japan for a three-week to one-month hands-on training program on coating machines equipped with SPC monitors.

T he case of the TPC Company provides an example of how cultural issues may be taken into consideration in a change pro-

cess. TPC has utilized a holistic approach to change that has given equal attention to technological as well as human issues affecting the successful implementation of an innovation. The Japanese management ' s tacit assumptions about culture, which I have made explicit and concep- tualized as their "culture of work," has enabled them to succeed in implementing a technological innovation. The concept of a culture of work has allowed the Japanese management to identify barriers that otherwise would have stood in their way of success, either by reducing the potential gains from their innovations or by making the entire innovation a failure.

In conclusion, I would like to point to three implications my argument has for the further study of both international and intranational takeovers. First, though others have posited that the Japanese have what might be called a specifically "Japanese" culture of work, their concept of culture is applicable to non-Japanese organizational contexts. The fact that the Japanese management team at TPC has been successful in dissolving cultural barriers to change and facilitating implementation of technological innovation suggests that techniques exist that can be initiated by other management teams regardless of national- ity. Second, this concept of culture is also applicable to intranational contexts in which there is already an internally heterogenous culture within a single nation-state such as the United States, China, and India.

Finally, this concept of culture is not a pana- cea. Some Japanese companies fail, and some that succeed often falter in other areas. An example is the TPC company, which has struggled in the area of middle management. Takeovers can generate problems the new management does not know how to resolve. These problems arise because a given definition of culture will always be context-bound. Even while I am making the Japanese "culture of work" concept explicit in giving it a name, I too am producing the concept from a particular perspective and con-

text. Were I to transfer the concept to a different organizational situation, there would no doubt be a new set of frictions for which it would not ac- count. What makes the context-bound notion of culture a useful one is that it both enables one to see potential problems one would otherwise not see and anticipates certain areas of blindness one can only begin to identify within the context of the specific organizational interaction. The dual nature of this concept makes it of value to both researchers and practitioners, ffl

References

N.J. Adler, "Understanding the Ways of Understanding: Cross-Cultural Management Methodology Reviewed," in R.N. Farmer (ed.), Advances in International Com- parative Management (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1984).

R.F. Allen, "Four Phases for Bringing About Cultural Change," in R.H. Kilmann et al., Gaining Control of the Corporate Culture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

J.C. Anderson, G. Cleveland, and R.G. Schroeder, "Op- erations Strategy: A Literature Review," Journal of Operations Management, 8, 2 (1989): 133-158.

J.B. Barney, "Organizational Culture: Can It Be a Source of Sustained Competitive Advantage?" Academy of Management Review, 11 (1986): 656-665.

E.S. Buffa and R.K. Sarin, Modern Production~Opera- tions Management (New York: Wiley, 1987).

G.R. Bushe, "Cultural Contradictions of Statistical Pro- cess Control in American Manufacturing Organiza- tions," Journal of Management, 14, 1 (1988): 19-31.

R.B. Chase and N.J. Aquilano, Production and Opera- tionsManagement (Boston: Irwin, 1989).

F. Damanpour and W.M. Evans, "Organizational Inno- vation and Performance: The Problem of Organiza- tional Lag," Administrative Science Quarterly, 29 (1984): 392-409.

M. Ebrahimpour, "An Examination of Quality Manage- ment in Japan: Implications for Management in the United States," Journal of Operations Management, 5, 4 (1985): 419-431.

F.E. Emery and E.L. Trist, "Causal Texture of Organiza- tional Environment," Human Relations, 19, i (1965): 21-32.

PJ. Frost, L. Moore, M.R. Louis, G. Lundberg, and J. Martin, eds., Organizational Culture (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1985).

P. Gagliardi, "The Creation and Change of Organiza- tional Cultures: A Conceptual Framework," Organiza- tion Studies, 7(1986): 117-134.


Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Inter- pretive Theory of Culture," in C. Geertz (ed.), The Interpretation of Cultures.. Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

J.M. Juran, "Japanese and Western Quality: A Contrast in Methods and Results," Management Review, Novem- ber 1978, pp. 27-45.

J.M. Juran, "Product Quality--A Prescription for the West. Part I: Training and Improvement Programs," Management Review, June 1981, pp. 9-14.

J.M. Juran, "Product Quality--A Prescription for the West. Part II: Upper-Management Leadership and Em- ployee Relations," Management Review, July 1981, pp. 57-61.

D. Katz and R.L. Kahn, The SocialPsychology of Orga- nizations (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966).

R.H. Kilmann, "Five Steps for Closing Culture-Gaps," in R.H. Kihnann et al., Gaining Control of Corporate Culture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

J.W. Lorsch, "Strategic Myopia: Culture as an Invisible Barrier to Change," in R.H. Kilmann et al., Gaining Control of Corporate Culture (San Francisco: JosseD Bass, 1985).

J.R. Meredith, Management of Operations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987).

J. Martin and C. Siehl, "Organizational Culture and Counterculture: An Uneasy Symbiosis," Organization Dynamics, I2, 2 (1983): 52-64.

W.A. Ouchi, Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (Reading, Mass.: Addison- Wesley, 1981).

Aihwa Ong, Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Disci- pline.. Factory Women in Malaysia (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1987).

R.T. Pascale and A.G. Athos, TheArt of Japanese Man- agement (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981).

A.M. Pettigrew, "Examining Change in the Long-term Context of Culture and Politics," in J. M. Pennings et al., Organizational Strategy and Change (San Fran- cisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

R.G. Schroeder, Operations Management (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989).

E.H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

L. Smircich, "Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis," Administrative Science Quarterly, 28 (1983): 339-358.

L. Smircich and M, Calas, "Organizational Culture: A Critical Assessment," in F. Jablin, L. Putnam, K. Roberts, and L. Porter (eds.), Handbook of Organizational Communication (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1986).

S. Terreberry, "The Evolution of Organizational Envi- ronments," Administrative Science Quarterly, 12 (1968): 590-613.

E.L. Trist and K.W. Bamforth, "Some Social and Psy- chological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-getting," Human Relations, 4 (1951): 3-38.

J. Van Maanen, Tales of the Field (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).

E. Vogel, Japan as Number One.. Lessons for America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).

M.A. Vonderembse and G.P. White, Operations Man- agement (St.Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1988).

A. Weiss, "Simple Truths of Japanese Manufacturing," Harvard Business Review, July-August 1984, pp. 119- 125.

A.L. Wilkins and W.G. Dyer, "Toward a Theory of Cultural Change: A Dialectic and Synthesis," Paper presented at the Third International Conference o n

Organizational Symbolism and Corporate Culture, Milan, June 1987.

J. Woodward, Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).

Mary Yoko Brannen is a doctoral candi- da te in the School of Management, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.


Culture as the critical factor in implementing innovation

Documents