Remade in America: Transplanting and Transforming Japanese Management Systems(Japan Business and Economics Series)

Over the last two decades, Japanese firms have challenged U.S. dominance in many manufacturing industries. This challenge has increasingly come in the form of transplant operations, and recognition has spread that their success owes a great deal to superior manufacturing management. Despite the ups and downs of the business cycle in Japan, there remains a core of world-class Japanese companies that have developed manufacturing management systems that companies throughout the world strive to emulate. In this edited volume, a team of eminent scholars uses case studies and large-scale surveys to explain in depth the process of transferring and transforming the best Japanese Management Systems (JMS) by both Japanese- and U.S.-owned firms. While the most successful of the Japanese manufacturing transplants rely, to varying degrees, on home country management techniques, they have had to adapt them to fit U.S. conditions. Similarly, the growing number of U.S. firms that are adopting these techniques to strengthen their own positions face a considerable challenge in transforming them to fit local conditions. A new environment necessarily compels the transformation of JMS. But despite the hurdles firms face, the evidence presented here and elsewhere strongly indicates that key aspects of JMS are remarkably transferable and successful in the United States. Combining scientific data with clear and engaging prose,Remade in America is a rich analytical resource for manufacturing professionals, as well as scholars and students of management and business.

Table of Contents:
Contributors 1: Jeffrey K. Liker, W. Mark Fruin, and Paul S. Adler: Bringing Japanese Management Systems to the United States: Transplantation or Transformation? Part I. Automotive and Automotive Parts 2: Frits K. Pil and John Paul MacDuffie: Transferring Competitive Advantage across Borders: A Study of Japanese Auto Transplants in North America 3: Paul S. Adler: Hybridization: Human Resource Management at Two Toyota Transplants 4: Mary Yoko Brannen, Jeffrey K. Liker, and W. Mark Fruin: Recontextualization and Factory-to-Factory Knowledge Transfer from Japan to the United States: The Case of NSK 5: John Paul MacDuffie and Susan Helper: Creating Lean Suppliers: Diffusing Lean Production through the Supply Chain Part II. Electronics and Related Products 6: Robert E. Cole: Japanese Quality Technology: Transferred and Transformed at Hewlett-Packard 7: W. Mark Fruin: Site-Specific Organization Learning in International Technology Transfer: Example from Toshiba 8: Martin Kenney: Transplantation? A Comparison of Japanese Television Assembly Plants in Japan and the United States 9: Mark F. Peterson, T.K. Peng, and Peter B. Smith: Using Expatriate Supervisors to Promote Cross-Border Management Practice Transfer: The Experience of a Japanese Electronics Company Part III. Surveys across Industries 10: Davis Jenkins and Richard Florida: Work System Innovation among Japanese Transplants in the United States 11: Masao Nakamura, Sadao Sakakibara, and Roger G. Schroeder: Just-in-Time and Other Manufacturing Practices: Implications for U.S. Manufacturing Performance 12: D. Eleanor Westney: Organization Theory Perspectives on the Cross-Border Transfer of Organizational Patterns Index