Week 1 Hw
Summary
The article is very incisive in the Japanese culture and how it affected Panasonic. It discusses how Japan’s postwar mentality, versus their 1990’s mentality were very different. As the times changed so did their train of thought. As Japan become more Western influenced, the majority went from depending on working for a company for the entirety of their career to wanting more freedom and preferring more pay over that job security. Panasonic tried to tailor their benefits packages with the changing trends of the time to continue to try to make their packages appealing.
Questions:
1.
What were the triggers of cultural change in Japan during the 1990s? How is cultural change starting to affect traditional values in Japan? The biggest trigger was the Western influence. Growing up in a world that was richer, Japan become more and more influenced by the Western culture and started to feel they had greater possibilities than their ancestors (Hill, 2010). The Western influence made employees for the first time not want to be tied to a company for life (2010). The poor performance of the company also played a major role in the changing of Panasonic’s ways. The culture change affected traditional values in many ways. One way was it changed their way of thinking towards their career and they slowly changed their once dominant traditional Japanese values of strong group identification, reciprocal obligations, and loyalty to their company (2010). They wanted more pay and were willing to turn down once more previously sought after benefits like retirement packages.
2.
How might Japan’s changing culture influence the way Japanese businesses operate in the future? What are the potential implications of such changes for the Japanese economy? Japan’s changing culture will influence the way Japanese businesses operate in many ways. It will change their benefits and pay structure as it did at Panasonic. It will change their retirement plan structure because if
The article is very incisive in the Japanese culture and how it affected Panasonic. It discusses how Japan’s postwar mentality, versus their 1990’s mentality were very different. As the times changed so did their train of thought. As Japan become more Western influenced, the majority went from depending on working for a company for the entirety of their career to wanting more freedom and preferring more pay over that job security. Panasonic tried to tailor their benefits packages with the changing trends of the time to continue to try to make their packages appealing.
Questions:
1.
What were the triggers of cultural change in Japan during the 1990s? How is cultural change starting to affect traditional values in Japan? The biggest trigger was the Western influence. Growing up in a world that was richer, Japan become more and more influenced by the Western culture and started to feel they had greater possibilities than their ancestors (Hill, 2010). The Western influence made employees for the first time not want to be tied to a company for life (2010). The poor performance of the company also played a major role in the changing of Panasonic’s ways. The culture change affected traditional values in many ways. One way was it changed their way of thinking towards their career and they slowly changed their once dominant traditional Japanese values of strong group identification, reciprocal obligations, and loyalty to their company (2010). They wanted more pay and were willing to turn down once more previously sought after benefits like retirement packages.
2.
How might Japan’s changing culture influence the way Japanese businesses operate in the future? What are the potential implications of such changes for the Japanese economy? Japan’s changing culture will influence the way Japanese businesses operate in many ways. It will change their benefits and pay structure as it did at Panasonic. It will change their retirement plan structure because if