Japanese corporations typically involve many more organizational levels and people in the development of implementation plans than do U.S. corporations. Is this appropriate? Why or why not?

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The Answer is Although the text does not discuss Japanese practices in this chapter, they have received a lot of attention from the press in terms of quality circles, participative decision making, and the like. Bill Ouchi, in his book Theory Z, points out that the Japanese "ringi" process involves circulating a formal proposal throughout an organization for approval at every level before the decision is made. In American terms, it may seem to take the Japanese forever to make a decision. This results from the Japanese managers' desire to involve those who will implement the decision in the initial formulation of strategy. Western strategy makers, by contrast, tend to make key decisions at the top (with some input from below as requested) and assume that it will be accepted without criticism and implemented appropriately. Implementation plans may thus be drafted rather generally by top management and given to lower level managers to "flesh out" the required plan of action.
Arguments for and against the Japanese-style participative approach to implementation planning tend to boil down to the question of tradeoffs. Which is most important in a particular situation: time or commitment? It also brings up another question: how much consideration should be given to implementation questions when formulating strategy? The Japanese method appears to see less of a distinction between strategy formulation and implementation. Rather, the two tend to be handled together in the planning stages. This is done because the Japanese tend to involve more corporate levels in the formulation process and thus cannot ignore implementation issues. In the United States, these issues might be ignored because top management might consider itself to be "responsible" for strategy formulation decisions.

Japanese Corporations Typically Involve Many More Organizational Levels and People