East Asia

Japan and South Korea

First to understand the comparison between these culture, it is important to understand the paradox of Convergence vs Divergence. Convergence means that as countries as they internationalize, they will follow a models found in developed countries, which will make at the end that management styles tend to be very similar in many aspects. Divergence says that the cultural values of each society are strong enough to create resistance to foreign influence in they management styles.

Japanese and korean management styles can be seen as very similar but at same time as different styles. The convergence between Japanese and Korean managements is because Korea saw in the early 50’s how Japan was vigorous recovering of its defeat at World Word II and saw in Japan the model to its own national effort to success. But the willingness to incorporate the Japanese system by itself its not enough reason to guarantee that its implementation will be successful, what do really help to bring those managements styles to converge can be explain in the long history that Korea and Japan had shared (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) and the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 until 1945 years, which are the reasons while they share some core values, that allow the koreans to successfully integrate many aspects of the Japanese management into their own style.

Japanese and Korean big corporation are organized in groups of companies that own each other stocks and participate in different sectors of the economy. In Japan such groups are known as Keiretsu (before World Word II known as Zaibatsu) whereas in Korea are known as Chaebols. Their structure is very similar and apply the same concept of conglomerate. The main differences between both are in first place that Keiretsus are organized around a central bank that finance them, whereas Chaebols resort to government for financial support, another difference is that Keiretsus nowadays are controlled by a group of professional, Chaebols still being controlled by founding families. Finally keiretsus have no longer strong ties to the government and Chaebols family owners have strong ties with the government.

Embedded in the Japanese and Korean culture is the concept of groupism, inside and outside the company, by which many of the management and organizational characteristics of the Japanese and Koreans will be dependent. But this doesn’t mean that Japanese work the same. For Japanese the most important is the group cohesion and harmony, but for Koreans hierarchy respect within a group is what matters.

The decisions Making in Japan is done in a bottom-up system. This means that at the lower or middle sections of the organization proposals are generated by work groups and then given to all relevant sections of the same level and then to higher levels to section heads, managers, directors until it finally reach the company president. In contrast in Korea the process is top-down, which means that in Korean organization Top management takes the decisions and then send them down thorough a chain command until the lower levels of the organization

Life Employment it is common practice carry out by big corporations in Japan and Korea, although in Korea this practice is done in a more flexible way an in a lees amount of employees. Japanese and Korean corporations have a hierarchical structure based on age and length of service but in Korea there is also the use of the merit system by which individual al measured.

All those differences make that the Japanese and Korean managements styles converge in at grate extent but at the same time have their own peculiarities.

1. List the main similarities and differences of Japanese and Korean management styles.

I’am going to focus in the dimensions of management style defined in the model of (Jangho Lee, Thomas W. Roehl and Soonkyoo Choe) and its conclusion.

Dimension	Japan	South Korea
Strategic Goals	Market share and profit maximization	Market share an profit maximization at a greater extent than the Japanese
Environment Analysis	Active at monitoring both they rivals and the suppliers of substitute goods.	Active at monitoring they rivals.
Technology development and manufacturing	Long-term technology development and Economies of scale in manufacturing making emphasis on flexible manufacturing systems.	Long-term technology development and Economies of scale in manufacturing.
Supplier Relationship	Cooperation with their suppliers and development of long-term relation with them.	Cooperation with their suppliers and development of long-term relation with them.
Closeness with customers	High emphasis on the importance of information exchange with costumers.	Less emphasis on the importance of information exchange with costumers than the Japanese, but as enterprises internationalize the gap becomes smaller.
Marketing	Importance in the development of corporate/trademark.	Importance in the development of corporate/trademark in internationalized enterprises.
Human resource management	Employees and their suggestions are very important in management.	Employees and their suggestions are less important in management that in Japan.
International Orientation	Conduction of customer analysis on a global basis and highly involvement on international marketing.	Conduction of customer analysis on a global basis and highly involvement on international marketing.

2.In the case of Korean and Japanese management styles, do you think they tend to converge or diverge? Are they likely to converge to each other or to other management styles (Western, Asian, etc).

In my opinion Korean and Japanese management styles tend to converge as we see that many aspects of the Korean management styles are adopted from the Japanese management styles. Also this two cultures share some history specially religion and philosophy that allow them to share at a certain extent values, attitudes and beliefs, which make for Korean organizations and easy task to implement the Japanese model without much resistance so they convergence is granted. As management styles adoption depends on its success, so as long a the Japanese model remain successful natural convergence will go to it, but as mention not all dimensions of a model are successful so Korea and even Japan will look at another Management styles as they are doing now after the Asian crisis of the mid 90‘s, and the model they have looked has been the American model, prove of this slightly shift to the american model are the new regulations implemented in Japanese organization in terms of performance over seniority for positions within a company and salaries. They will then tend to look for a new management style that resolve their model drawbacks and improve their actual model.

Sources:

• El Kahal, Sonia, Business in the Asia Pacific, Oxford University, 2001, p146, 20p, Japanese Management.(EBSCO database)

• Leanne Fiftal Alarid, Hsiao-Ming Wang, (1997) "Japanese management and policing in the context of Japanese culture", Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Vol. 20 Iss: 4, pp.600 - 608. (Emerald database)

• Lee Jangho, Thomas W.Roehl & Sookyoo Choe, 2000. What Makes Management Styles Similar and Distinct Across Borders? Groeth, Expirence and Culture in Korea and Japanese Firms. Journal of International Business Studies, 31 (4): 631-52

• Asia Pacific Journal of Management; Jun2009, Vol. 26 Issue 2, p333-351, 19p, Japanese keiretsu: Past, present, future.(EBSCO database)