Mabuchi Motors Solution

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MABUCHI MOTOR CO., LTD. CASE ANALYSIS 2

Abstract

This paper analyzes the case study of Mabuchi Motor Co., Ltd conducted in the year 1998. In

the year 1995, the leading small electrical motors Japanese manufacturer faced difficulties at the

beginning of implementing its NIHAO program in one of its Chinese subsidiaries. The program

aimed to train local potential Chinese staff to take over managerial positions in order to lead

local operations and reduce the expatriate Japanese managers’ percentage in offshore locations, a

strategic objective that Mabuchi realized it was a must to move towards true globalization and

integrating activities on a global scale. The paper analyzes reasons behind challenges that faced

the program implementation; the research proposes the key reasons behind these challenges

being the Chinese managers’ resistance to the program due to not being a part of the program

design, and having the fact that cultural aspects created a conflict between the ethnocentric

Japanese management approach and the local culture of potential Chinese managers. The paper

also studies Mabuchi’s organizational structure and leadership style that are also considered as

supporting factors that created the Chinese resistance to the NIHAO.

Keywords: Small Electric Motors, Japan, Internationalization, International Management, Case

Analysis, Mabuchi, Cross Cultural Management, Diversity, Cultural Differences, Organizational

Structure, Leadership


Mabuchi Motor Co., Ltd. Case Analysis

International Management – Assignment 3

Introduction

The small electrical motors industry serves five main end user demands; motor vehicles;

appliances and other consumer durables; heating and cooling machinery; computers and office

equipment; and various industrial machines. Most growing demand found to be in computers and

office equipment, and appliances and durables.1 Mabuchi competed mostly in all of the main

categories.2 Small electrical motor makers compete primarily in product design and

technological performance aspects. The component-based industry depends on meeting the

Original Equipment Manufacturer OEM standards at the best design and the lower cost possible.

In the rapidly-growing and highly-competitive industry, the upper hand in bargaining power rests

with the OEMs.3

The industry has globalization potentials due to the possible high degree of

standardization in product features and the wide possible global base for sourcing and selling.

Forward integration can be very difficult for small electric motor makers as diversifying into

OEMs or full-product manufacturers requires a completely different investment levels and

technological knowhow. On the other hand, backward integration for raw materials supply can

achieve a competitive advantage. Accordingly, the low need for local responsiveness and the

average need for vertical integration should classify the industry as a regional industry,4 an

argument that is supported by the fact that the industry is dominated by Japanese and Asian

companies.5


The Japanese-led industry has forced Japanese companies to send their managers and

technicians overseas in order to control production quality and train local subsidiaries. However,

the number of expatriate Japanese managers across the globe has been declining.6 One of the

reasons behind these declining numbers is the relatively huge cost of sending a Japanese

manager overseas compared to its local peer’s cost with a ratio of 20:1 to 10:1 respectively.7

Another reason is the scarcity of supply for Japanese managers to send for expatriate missions

due to the increased number of offshore Japanese subsidiaries. Realizing the need for developing

and empowering local talents is also a key reason to achieve true globalization and efficiency.

The traditional Japanese "rice paper ceiling" practice of limiting non-Japanese employees from

managerial positions is starting to be discontinued by many Japanese companies overseas

especially in Japanese subsidiaries in the developed world such as the US.8 Approaching the

issue from a strategic perspective, it can be concluded as a natural evolution for any foreign

direct investment that the number of expatriate managers should decrease with the increase of the

market entry age and organization size. When local managers are well-educated on corporate

strategies and culture, they should be more capable of running business as planned.9 Since

Mabuchi started its international expansions as early as the 1996s,10 more numbers of local

managers in most offshore locations should be ready to take charge.

Analysis

After introducing the small electric motors industry overview and explaining reasons

behind the declining number of Japanese expatriates overseas, the paper analyzes Mabuchi’s key

business strategies, organizational structure and management methodology. Finally, the analysis


goes deeper into the cultural aspects, similarities and differences of the Japanese and Chinese

professionals, and how all factors can affect the implementation of the NIHAO program.

Corporate Strategies

Mabuchi Motors adopted primarily a concentric diversification strategy selling its

products to different sectors that demand end product with similar technological knowhow to

manufacture. The company also followed a balanced market development, product development,

and market penetration strategies dominating the Asian industry with a strong regional sourcing

and global selling base. The company depended on foreign direct investment in its expansions

aiming to maximize profit margin and control over production quality.11 Mabuchi has set an

example for Japanese companies to follow in terms of production efficiency by moving

manufacturing off the Japanese borders to lower wedges countries. In fact, the 100 percent

Japanese company never builds a product in Japan.12 Operations strategy follows a mass

production strategy with a high degree of standardization. It can be concluded that Mabuchi

followed a differentiation strategy providing high quality products and customer service for

global customers who traded such qualities for relatively higher prices.

In terms of Mabuchi’s position in the internationalization process, the company can be

described as an international organization, where core functions are centralized in headquarters,

and the company exports its production to many global markets. Regional subsidiaries are not

yet independent or integrating activities on a global scale.13 The path to the internationalization

can be described as an accelerated geographic expansion.14

Mabuchi’s competitive advantages are illustrated in its core competencies and intangible

assets such as; product quality, lean production, operational excellence, timely delivery and

qualified labor.15 According to the resource-based view, the intangibles and the rich sourcing


infrastructure are the primary sources of the competitive advantage. According to Porter’s

strategic positioning approach, the company was successfully able to take advantage of the

macro environmental trends and opportunities, as well as its continuous attempts to minimize

threats by having a less dependence on China as a prime manufacturing location and trying to

open new offshore manufacturing locations.16

Mabuchi’s diversification strategies held great advantages for the company’s growth and

prosperity. The company successfully covered a wide range of product categories for different

industries. However, this diversification strategy can put difficulties on the implementation of the

NIHAO program by having the need to integrate local managers’ activities on both the regional

and the product division dimensions which can be more challenging at the beginning of the

implementation. Moving operations out of the Japanese border by foreign direct investment has

helped the company to decrease cost of sales significantly and lead the global market. This can

also help the implementation of NIHAO as the potential new local managers will be exposed to

all aspects of operations with a freedom to experiment new methods and strategies. As for the

differentiation strategy and the adoption of strict quality standards; it can be a double edged

weapon in the NIHAO implementation by exposing local managers to tough quality measures

that forces them to either succeed in implementing, save huge costs which can help the

company’s globalization, or to fail which can lead to additional training investments and time.

Organizational Structure and Management analysis

Taking the Chinese subsidiary of Dalain as an example, we find it an example of a pure

functional structure where a great respect to hierarchy and formal reporting lines. Yet, the

structure suites mass production industrial firms. Moving to a wider scope of Mauchi’s

corporation global structure, we find it mostly a functional structure with some elements of the


product division and the international division organizational structures.17 It can be concluded

that this mix is the result of the attempts to globalize the traditional functional structure by

assigning general managers to control product division and country managers to control overseas

locations. The new Mabuchi 21 steering committee is found to be extremely distant from

overseas operational and divisional managers in terms of hierarchy and reporting line. The local

affiliates run by Japanese expatriate managers are working under the global structure and

implementing strategies set by the headquarters,18 a strategy that is found to be mostly adopted

by corporations that face both high pressures of globalization and low local affiliate capabilities19

which is not the case of Mabuchi’s Japanese managers. A 100 percent of the manufacturing

general managers are expatriates, while around only 10 percent of all factory managers are local.

The two local factory managers are in Chinese locations. In the section chiefs category, there is

an obvious inconsistent ratios of local versus expatriate numbers across different locations.

However, the average number for all locations shows a higher percentage for locals. Below the

section chiefs level, no expatriates are found.20

The implementation of the NIHAO program assigned local Chinese managers to handle

separate activities that don’t overlap or interrelate assuming such strategy can minimize internal

conflicts.21 In terms of leadership and decision-making styles, the company adopted a

transactional leadership style where contingent rewards based on performance are applied,22 a

management strategy that is mostly found in multinational corporations.23 The ethnocentric

Japanese management style put great power to its proved-successful management philosophy24

which is applied across all global locations with the minimal local adjustments to meet each local

need.


Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of Mabuchi’s organizational structure and

management style, we find that the functional structure is suitable for industrial organizations

seeking a great degree of standardization and operational efficiency.25 The structure also helps

having faster decision-making processes due to the centralization and the legitimate power of

line managers. Having Mabuchi 21 committee on the top levels of corporate structure can

empower the strategic initiative and helps a faster implementation of the NIHAO program. The

high level of expatriate managers in global locations should help transferring the corporate

strategies and culture to offshore subsidiaries. The transactional leadership can motivate

employees to work harder and achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in operations.

However, these strategies also hold many weaknesses such as; the difficulty to transfer and

execute corporate level strategies to local operations due to a great power distance between both.

The functional structure doesn’t empower local managers to innovate with an entrepreneurial

spirit in order to compete in developing their own business units and take creative approaches

and decisions, as well as it can prevent them from integrating and sharing knowledge with their

peers overseas. The increased level of expatriate managers especially in top positions can

demotivate ambitious local individuals who are capable and holding a non-utilized valuable local

market knowledge. Such structure and strategy can also create a natural resistance to the NIHAO

program as it can be perceived as an outsider’s agenda to be applied disregarding individual local

location needs. Separating local managers’ activities in the NIHAO program isn’t utilizing a

valuable team spirit and sharing knowledge among local Chinese managers that is an integral

part of their culture.


Cultural Aspects Analysis

The Japanese culture is a unique one among its regional similar Asian cultures as it

represents a mix between the authentic collective Asian cultures from one hand, and the

masculine and individualistic Western cultures on the other hand. The parochial approach in

implementing the NIHAO program indicated cultural conflicts between the enforced Japanese

management system and the Chinese managers. In order to spot the real cultural conflicts points

and the degree of which each conflict can impact the implementation of NIHAO, the paper puts a

conceptual framework to analyze the Japanese-Chinese cultural differences through selected 13

key cultural aspects of; individualism, informality, materialism, time orientation, power distance,

uncertainty avoidance, masculine/feminine, how hierarchy and manager’s role is

perceived,26economic and political Philosophy and religion and education.27 (See Exhibit 2)

Gap analysis finds higher gaps in power distance, masculinity/femininity, hierarchy and

manager’s role, and religion and political philosophy, while the two cultures are found to be

close in terms of time orientation and uncertainty avoidance. Looking deeper into the cultural

differences, we find that the two cultures perceive one’s relationship to the universe differently.

In the Japanese culture, events and circumstances are under one’s control, planned activities

should simply happen if resources to accomplish are available. On the other hand, Chinese

employees may tend to believe that future events are previously-determined by a higher force

that is out of individuals’ control. One’s responsibility and space in the Chinese culture are

extended to include colleagues, family and community unlike the individualistic Japanese

culture. Chinese put higher values to the actual process or journey to achieve something than the

actual results. Manager’s and power distance are primarily people-oriented and not results or

objectives-oriented. Informality in the Chinese manager-subordinates relationship is highly


contrasting with the strict Japanese relationships in that matter, team achievements are praised

more than individual achievements, room for innovation and individual initiatives and

compensations are uncommon. In terms of higher education and professional training quality,

Japan is found to be a long way ahead of China in that matter. Quality of the Japanese education

system does not stop at primary education, but also to the higher education and training unlike

the Chinese education system. These academic qualities are intensively-needed in managerial

positions. Having a pool of Chinese local managers that have the necessary education and

training can be challenging. On the other hand, the two cultures are similar in terms of their long-

term view of time. Both cultures do not feel the typical Western tense time pressure in

accomplishing activities, instead, they tend to give enough time to consider and implement

business activities, an approach that matches another cultural aspect with a low gap between both

cultures which is the level of uncertainty avoidance. Both cultures are hesitate to do things

differently or to test new initiatives. Both prefer to do things the way proved successful before

and take lower risk levels in business activities.28

In a general look we find that differences between the two cultures are more than their

similarities. Adding to the problem, most differences do not present a challenge in the lower-

level or workers class in Mabuchi’s operations in China, but they do present huge challenges

among senior-level and management Chinese staff and accordingly the implementation on the

NIHAO program. Chinese managers’ cultural norms and values would be naturally-resistant to a

system that doesn’t give enough credit to team accomplishments and promotes individual

contributions instead. The Chinese perceived responsibility for the wellbeing and

accomplishments of their staff and the casual relationships can conflict with having the necessary

strict and disciplined Japanese management system. In addition to that, the enforced Japanese


system is perceived as a materialistic and capitalistic system that is imposed on them and doesn’t

promote highly-rated spiritual and idealistic values of the Chinese staff, but only aims to achieve

more profits.

Conclusions

The unsuccessful implementation of the NIHAO program in China is primarily due to a

strong resistance by the Chinese staff. This resistance is due to culture-related aspects whether

these aspects are illustrated in the differences between the Japanese and Chinese business

cultures or due to the management and corporate structure aspects that resulted from the

ethnocentric Japanese culture and derived Mabuchi to enforce its parochial system in China.

Mabuchi didn’t take advantage or plan to avoid threats of cultural diversity in the design and the

implementation of the NIHAO program.

Mabuchi’s international exporter behavior doesn’t empower offshore subsidiaries to

manage their business units based on what is suitable for each local talent, culture, and needs.

Instead, all offshore subsidiaries only implement centralized strategies comes from the

headquarters which creates a natural resistance to the NIHAO program implementation having

the fact they didn’t participate or had an input in designing it, while believing they know their

own home countries better, and having the fact that they should’ve already gained a lot of

experience in Mabuchi’s business considering the older age and size of the Chinese operations.

The resistance to the program is also empowered by the natural uncertainty avoidance in the

Chinese culture and their negative perception to the materialistic values and capitalistic

approaches. The separate assignments designed for local managers did not plan to take advantage

of the collective culture and lack of individuality among Chinese starting managers. The strict


contingency policies to compensate individual high performers and penalize low performers did

not take into consideration the strong people orientation among Chinese managers who perceive

themselves as socially-responsible for their subordinates. Having a 100 percent of

manufacturing activities out of the Japanese borders helps cost savings but also represents a

greater management challenge of forcing Japanese managers to manage operations outside of

their comfort zone. Even having Japanese expatriates at a higher cost did not leave them to

autonomously plan and manager their locations. Accordingly, the high investment did not

leverage their experience and capabilities, but assigned them to just execute strategies from the

headquarters.

The Mabuchi 21committe’s location in the functional organizational structure holds a

great challenge to study and exchange information with local people on the ground to take their

input, interact and brainstorm in designing the program. In other words, local teams are not

represented at all in the committee planning to introduce a new program for them to implement.

Since local affiliates are mostly run by Japanese expatriate qualified managers, a great deal of

local innovation on the country level is lost, as well as causing to bare a greater cost of the

Japanese expatriates.

The NIHAO program design didn’t take into consideration how to leverage the huge

potentials of the Chinese collective and spiritual culture and the strong community and family

orientation in order to achieve greater cost savings and a higher employee morale. The program

also didn’t take advantage of the similarities between the two cultures in terms of uncertainty

avoidance and time orientation to achieve greater mutual understanding and communication. It

can also be easily concluded that Mabuchi didn’t invest in developing a strong global corporate

culture that can minimize the cultural differences between nations.29


Recommendations

At this point, Mabuchi has the option to continue the implementation of the NIHAO

program with more strict policies to enforce the corporate headquarters management style and

culture on the Chinese managers, a process that is expected to face more resistance, time and

costs investments. But using this alternative can achieve Mabuchi’s strategic objective eventually

to start depending on local managers in China. Another option is to abort the NIHAO program

and leave Japanese expatriates to run Chinese operations, an option that continues to drain the

company’s financial and personnel resources, as well as creating a strong demotivation for

ambitious Chinese potential managers. This alternative can put Mabuchi’s strategists at a

position of failure to achieve one of the company’s strategic objectives. A third alternative is to

pilot the program in another less-strategic global location such as India or Taiwan instead of

China, study outcomes, tweak and fine-tune the program and reintroduce it in China. Using this

alternative can also help achieving the desired strategy with a time delay to implement in

Mabuchi’s main operations location.

However, the above alternatives treat the problem from a tactical perspective and don’t

help the company’s way into true globalization by starting its first offshore management program

based on a tangible and quantifiable understanding of global management approaches.

In September 1995, Mabuchi should pause the implementation of the NIHAO program

for a period of three months. This period should aim to redesign and tweak the NIHAO program

towards more tolerance and understanding to local culture and needs. The organization should

also study a change to its global organizational structure. Mabuchi 21 committee should add to

its team local Chinese country managers. These local elements should be one of the primary

inputs in the design of the NIHAO program. The management should explain thoroughly the


importance of this program to local staff in a form of clear and defined objectives that can

directly relate to them. For example; we want to have a 50 percent of our management team in

China of local staff by the end of the year 1997, we want to raise the overall labor productivity

and wedges by 20 percent at the same time. The company should also communicate and address

possible limitations as well as potentials of labor, budgets and resources to local staff clearly.

The management should adopt a friendly and open communication style with local staff to spot

specific issues and resolve real problems, with the notion of mutual respect and partnership

spirit.30 Mabuchi should allow local staff to address their key diversity issues to be taken into

consideration and promote open and constructive discussions about diversity.31 The NIHAO

program should be communicated and positioned internally as a way to raise the Chinese career

aspiration and community overall in a positive way by providing training programs and career

development plans.

Regarding the organizational structure, Mabuchi should abort its rigid organizational

restructure into a new global product division structure mixed with a regional and country

management matrix to suite its current capabilities of having low local affiliates capabilities,

high product standardization and product specialization (See Exhibit 1).32 The new structure

should have vice presidents to oversee each product category’s global operations, R&D, sales,

marketing and sourcing, where these functions are responsible for business development, sales

and overall product performance. The new global structure should also include country managers

to act as liaisons between local functions and global product management; these managers are

compensated based on cost reduction and production efficiency. Regional centralized research

and development centers should be in Japan, Europe and North America and should be

responsible for the global and regional product innovation and design. Regional directors will


have a dotted reporting to global product VPs, and Mabuchi 21 committee will coordinate

between the executive level and the country management level (See Exhibit 1).

Aspatial career assignments should be held for Chinese managers to travel to the

headquarters and accomplish global missions in order to get exposed to different cultures and

management styles. These assignments should be planned and compensated properly to avoid

possible disappointments after completion. SWOT teams consisting of global and autonomous

talents should be created to minimize the cost of permanent expatriate positions towards more

flexible and cost effective global problem solving strategies.33

A global function of corporate communication should be created to build a strong

corporate culture taking into consideration all current and future aspects of cultural diversity and

inputs from each culture to come up with a documented code of conduct that carries global

values of mutual respect, quality, innovation, and team work. Each existing and new employee

should be oriented and educated about the corporate culture in all locations and positions.

Knowledge exchange between International teams should be facilitated, global recognition

programs, job rotations, corporate events and social activities should be held to help narrowing

national differences into a one global corporate culture. The corporate communications role

should be extended to reach local suppliers and partners in building a global corporate brand that

cares for community and adheres and celebrates local cultures.

MABUC

Exhibit 1

Sources: BCases.34

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Exhibit 2: Japanese-Chinese Business Culture Gap Analysis

Cultural Aspect Japanese Culture Chines Culture Gap Analysis

Individualism Partially-Collective35 Highly-Collective36 Medium

Informality Formal37 Informal38 Medium

Materialism Materialistic39 Low Materialistic40 Medium

Time Orientation River41 River42 Low

Power Distance Highly-Perceived43 Lowly- Perceived44 High

Uncertainty Avoidance Tolerant45 Avoidant46 Low

Masculine/Feminine Highly-Masculine47 Feminine48 High

Hierarchy and

Manager’s Role

Strict, Directive49 Loose, Supportive50 High

Economic Philosophy Market Economy Mixed Economy Medium

Political Philosophy Partially-Democratic51 Communist High

Religion Mostly No Religion52 Buddhism/Collective53 High

Higher Education and

Training Quality

High54 Low55 High

Sources: Miroshnik, V. (2002). Culture and international management Ford, J. B., & Honeycutt Jr, E. D. (1992). Japanese national culture as a basis for understanding, Goerzen, A. & Beamish, P. (1998). Mabuchi Motor Co., Ltd Schaefer, A. D., Hermans, C. M., & Parker, R. (2004). A cross-cultural exploration of materialism in adolescents Meyer, E., & Shen, E. (2010). China Myths, China Facts Ralston, D. A., Holt, D. H., Terpstra, R. H., & Yu, K. (1995). THE IMPACT OF CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY ON MANAGERIAL WORK VALUES: A STUDY OF THE UNITED STATES, RUSSIA, JAPAN, AND CHINA Roger Darlington's World Blog. A SHORT GUIDE TO THE JAPANESE POLITICAL SYSTEM . Roger Darlington. Accessed July 3rd 2011 Roger Darlington's World Blog. A SHORT GUIDE TO THE JAPANESE POLITICAL SYSTEM . Roger Darlington. WikipediaWebsite. Religion in Japan. WikipediaWebsite. Accessed July 3rd 2011 WikipediaWebsite. Religion_in_China. WikipediaWebsite. Accessed July 3rd 2011 World Economic Forum Website. The Global Competitiveness Report 2010–2011.


End Notes

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Economics, 35(2), 66. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

2 Goerzen, A. & Beamish, P. (1998). Mabuchi Motor Co., Ltd.. Ivey Management Services.

3 Deneen, M., & Gross, A. (2000). End Uses and End Users of Small Electric Motors. Business

Economics, 35(2), 66. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

4 Beamish, P. & Morrison, A. & Rosenzweig, P. & Inkpen, A. (2002). International

Management: Text and Cases. USA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

5 Reuters. (2011). Electrical Components / Equipment. Retrieved from

http://www.reuters.com/sectors/industries/rankings?industryCode=41&view=sales

6 Beamish, P. W., & Inkpen, A. C. (1998). Japanese Firms and the Decline of the Japanese

Expatriate. Journal of World Business, 33(1), 35. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.


8 Beamish, P. W., & Inkpen, A. C. (1998). Japanese Firms and the Decline of the Japanese

Expatriate. Journal of World Business, 33(1), 35. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

9 Lifeng Geng, D. T. (2004). Ownership and International Joint Ventures' Level of Expatriate

Managers. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 4(1/2), 75-83.

Retrieved from EBSCOhost.




12 Takeda, K. (1997). The Mabuchi Brothers: Japan's offshore pioneers. Asian Business Review,

47. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.





16 Afonso, F., & Maria Tereza, F. (2003). Competitive strategies and core competencies:

perspectives for the internationalisation of industry in Brazil. Integrated Manufacturing

Systems, 14(1), 16-25. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.









23 Kedia, B. L., Nordtvedt, R., & Pérez, L. M. (2002). INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

STRATEGIES, DECISION-MAKING THEORIES, AND LEADERSHIP STYLES: AN

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25 Wikipedia Website. Organizational structure. Wikipedia. Accessed June 25th 2011 <

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure >.

26 Miroshnik, V. (2002). Culture and international management: a review. Journal of

Management Development, 21(7/8), 521. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

27 Chang, L. (2002). Cross-cultural differences in international management using Kluckhohn-

Strodtbeck Framework. Journal of American Academy of Business, (2/1), 20.

28 Chang, L. (2002). Cross-cultural differences in international management using Kluckhohn-

Strodtbeck Framework. Journal of American Academy of Business, (2/1), 20.

29 Wiechmann, D., Ryan, A., & Hemingway, M. (2003). DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING

GLOBAL STAFFING SYSTEMS: PART I--LEADERS IN GLOBAL STAFFING.

Human Resource Management, 42(1), 71-83. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

30 Miroshnik, V. (2002). Culture and international management: A review. The Journal of

Management Development, 21(7/8), 521.

31 Roberts, K. & Kossek, E. & Ozeki, C. (2003). Managing the global workforce: Challenges and

strategies. The Academy of Management Executive;, 12(4), 93.



33 Roberts, K. & Kossek, E. & Ozeki, C. (2003). Managing the global workforce: Challenges and

strategies. The Academy of Management Executive;, 12(4), 93.








37 Ford, J. B., & Honeycutt Jr, E. D. (1992). Japanese national culture as a basis for

understanding.. Business Horizons, 35(6), 27. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.




40 Schaefer, A. D., Hermans, C. M., & Parker, R. (2004). A cross-cultural exploration of

materialism in adolescents. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 28(4), 399-411.

doi:10.1111/j.1470-6431.2004.00395.x





43 Ford, J. B., & Honeycutt Jr, E. D. (1992). Japanese national culture as a basis for

understanding.. Business Horizons, 35(6), 27. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.



45 Ralston, D. A., Holt, D. H., Terpstra, R. H., & Yu, K. (1995). THE IMPACT OF CULTURE

AND IDEOLOGY ON MANAGERIAL WORK VALUES: A STUDY OF THE

UNITED STATES, RUSSIA, JAPAN, AND CHINA. Academy of Management Best

Papers Proceedings, 187-191. doi:10.5465/AMBPP.1995.17536453

46 Ralston, D. A., Holt, D. H., Terpstra, R. H., & Yu, K. (1995). THE IMPACT OF CULTURE

AND IDEOLOGY ON MANAGERIAL WORK VALUES: A STUDY OF THE

UNITED STATES, RUSSIA, JAPAN, AND CHINA. Academy of Management Best

Papers Proceedings, 187-191. doi:10.5465/AMBPP.1995.17536453








51 Roger Darlington's World Blog. A SHORT GUIDE TO THE JAPANESE POLITICAL SYSTEM

. Roger Darlington. Accessed July 3rd 2011 <

http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/Japanesepoliticalsystem.html>.

52 WikipediaWebsite. Religion in Japan. WikipediaWebsite. Accessed July 3rd 2011 <

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan>.

53 WikipediaWebsite. Religion_in_China. WikipediaWebsite. Accessed July 3rd 2011 <

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China>.


54 World Economic Forum Website. The Global Competitiveness Report 2010–2011. World

Economic Forum. Accessed July 3rd 2011 <

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2010-11.pdf>.

55 World Economic Forum Website. The Global Competitiveness Report 2010–2011. World

Economic Forum. Accessed July 3rd 2011 <

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2010-11.pdf>.

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Mabuchi Motors Solution