ABSTRACT
For most of the twentieth century American corporate practices and theories about organising have been regarded by everyone as best practice at the leading edge of capitalism (Chandler 1962; Locke 1996). The discourse of ‘how to organise’ has preoccupied the business schools and social science communities. In the modern period that discourse seemed to be neutral with respect to the singularities of any nation. So, when Crozier (1964, 1973), a great admirer of American life, identified the problems of transferring these practices outside the USA his analysis was marginalised and subsumed within abstract general frameworks (e.g. Perrow 1987; Clark 1979). The French have been active in drawing attention to the kinds of problem which might arise in the misapplication of US practices. Awareness of American exceptionalism in the business school was stimulated by Hofstede's (1980) research and his interpretations. However, as Locke (1996) observed, rather pessimistically and perhaps prematurely, the best-known American practices were being overtaken by new ways of organising from Japan. Paradoxically, it is the performance of Japanese firms that has so impressed the faculty of the American business school rather than that of German business and management.
