As Japan's decade-long economic stagnation continues, there has been much analysis of the immediate macroeconomic … problems that confront the Japanese economy. This book looks past the short-run challenges to the future of Japan and … concrete suggestions for improvement. The resulting volume is a timely and important examination of critical issues for Japan …

, Japan's acclaimed strategies are not particularly novel or even especially Japanese. Tsutsui traces the roots of these … practices to Scientific Management, or Taylorism, an American concept that arrived in Japan at the turn of the century. During … subsequent decades, this imported model was embraced--and ultimately transformed--in Japan's industrial workshops. Imitation gave …