Carlos Ghosn - Nissan

Carlos Ghosn led one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of the modern corporation. Dispatched to Tokyo in 1999, with orders from France’s Renault SA to rescue its floundering Japanese business partner, Nissan Motor, Ghosn moved boldly. He slashed costs, closed unprofitable factories, shrank the supplier network, sold unprofitable assets, and rewired Nissan’s insular culture. Skeptics pronounced his efforts doomed. But within a year, Ghosn had returned Japan’s second-largest auto manufacturer to profitability and was widely credited with saving it from collapse. Since then, Ghosn—who was named CEO of Nissan in 2001—has transformed Nissan into one of the world’s most profitable companies. Under his leadership, Nissan has pushed aggressively into emerging markets such as Brazil, China, India, Russia, and Southeast Asia and shifted production of many core models outside Japan. He has invested heavily to develop affordable zero-emission vehicles, including the Nissan LEAF, which was launched in 2010, and a full lineup of Renault electric vehicles.

1) What are the different management practices that are unique to Japanese organizations? Although Japan's economic development is primarily the product of private entrepreneurship, the government has directly contributed to the nation's prosperity. The culture of Japanese management and HR practices so famous in the West is in strong contrast to the practices followed in European or US organizations. A majority of the HR practices have strong historical influence emerged as a result of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Leadership stemmed from the government and authority in general, and business looked to government for guidance. The destruction caused by the war on Japan resulted in an economy, which included aggressive forms of government intervention. Such an economy favored a system where no company went bankrupt and no worker lost his job. One of the prominent features of Japanese