ABSTRACT
This chapter presents one main finding of a three-nation comparative study of organizations matched for size and products. Japan has often been mentioned in the context of cultural variations in industrial societies. The emphasis on hierarchy, noted by virtually every social scientist writing on Japan, is likely to be reflected in Japanese organizations being more centralized than those in other industrialized societies. The finding of Japanese organizations having more formal ranks is no doubt related to the norm of lifetime employment and of reward by seniority, and to the fact that there are established career lines within organizations. The structural similarities demonstrated differ from the expectations one might have after reading more personal accounts of Japanese organizations. The country means of scores on the dimensions of bureaucracy aggregated by organization and rank. The Japanese traditional emphasis on order may have prepared the Japanese to better appreciate the need for rules and procedures.
