How are Asian countries preparing children to have skills—including creativity, innovation, and technical capability—to compete in the 21st Century global economy? Countries including China, Korea, Japan and Singapore have begun to integrate education policy and practice into a key component...

Integrating the impact of resources and institutional factors, this study compares and contrasts the dynamic relationships between product diversification, business group affiliation and firm performance in two major economies in Asia. India and Japan have been chosen as they represent different...

This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal study into manufacturing performance, lean production principles and buyer supplier relations in the Japanese, US and UK automotive industries. A total of 26 first tier component makers in the three countries were subject to detailed benchmarking...

Today’s rough competition at a global level in all spheres of activity imposes companies worldwide to make sustained efforts in order to improve their products, services and processes. The automotive industry has always provided valuable examples of companies that achieved business excellence...

Integrating the impact of resources and institutional factors, this study compares and contrasts the dynamic relationships between product diversification, business group affiliation and firm performance in two major economies in Asia. India and Japan have been chosen as they represent different...

In 1973 the British academic Ronald Dore published what was to become one of the most influential books ever written in the fields of industrial sociology and Japanese studies. British Factory-Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations (Dore, 1973) was a...

Controls can be broken down into two broad categories: impersonal controls based on written documents in which predefined objectives, stated in terms of numerical norms or standards, are compared to numerical results; and personal controls based on direct contacts with people, whereby one will...

We argue that the legal boundaries of the firm have more substantial effects on the Japanese multi-business organization than on its U.S. counterpart. The standard economic, management, or legal view is that distinguishing between an in-house division and a subsidiary, in particular, a wholly...

The objective of this study is to document the implementation of the Toyota production system (TPS) in a Healthcare Organisation – Heartland Regional Medical Center – undertaken to meet accreditation standards and customer service goals. We record the challenges experienced and elaborate the...

Regardless of the arguments from scientists supporting genetically modified foods, there is still a negative consumer attitude toward GM foods in many countries, including Brazil, as well as concerns about the risks related to health and the environment. As this is a recent subject, there is...