Agents of Change

The transfer of industrial knowledge to Japan during the US Occupation after World War II had a lasting impact on that nation’s economy and has been fodder for much scholarship. Bowen Deese and Kenneth Hopper have chronicled how CCS (Civil Communication Section) and other SCAP (Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers) subsidiaries promoted US management practices. ¹ Stephen Adams and Paul Miranti have evaluated also CCS’s role in facilitating the reorganization and restoration of telecommunications transmissions and manufacturing. ² Alfred D. Chandler has argued that Japanese success in consumer goods is attributable to exploiting first-mover advantages by learning how to integrate managerial and technological capabilities. ³ Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos contend that learning depends on the type of knowledge. They believe that objective matter—that is, strategy, structure and system—proved more adaptable to Japanese business than more subjective social and cultural values affecting organizational staffing and management style. ⁴ In his study of the Japanese automobile industry, Michael Cusumano notes how receptivity to US practices was conditioned by Japan’s perceived effectiveness in addressing home market conditions. ⁵ Michael Fransman has explained the decisive role of government in giving priority to economic plans that emphasized exports. ⁶ William C. Tsutsui has examined the sociopolitical factors that fostered Japanese interest in scientific management. ⁷ Jonathan Zeitlin and Gary Herrigel argue that the acceptance of US management practices resulted from the flexibility of its underlying knowledge base which was adaptable in many dissimilar sociocultural contexts. ⁸