The Japanese model is defined, in a broad sense, as a new model of industrial relations, organization between companies and work management, capable of meeting, at the same time, demands for flexibility, quality and productivity of production. At the level of productive organization and resource management, the Japanese model became widely known by the so-called "Toyotism" of production, which includes an arsenal of management techniques and tools such as just in time, Kanban, Kaizen, circles of quality,…, adapted or recreated by Japanese specialists, even starting from the postulates of the scientific administration. Despite the "Taylorist" inspiration, the model also incorporated practices such as "lifetime employment", teamwork, the emphasis on versatility,in the participation and qualification of workers.
The success of Japanese growth is often explained by the efficiency of the Keiretsu, and the argument that makes outsourcing, dualism, and segmentation the keys to competitiveness for large groups. However, the outsourcing argument seems insufficient because it does not explain the overall macroeconomic results (support for employment, growth in productivity and the rate of profit).
The Japanese model is not Fordist in the American sense:
- "Toyotaism" operates ways of obtaining productivity that are different from Taylorism and Fordism. More than division of labor and tasks, the Japanese model uses vocational training, generates learning economies and encourages versatility and internal flexibility. The inertia in the adjustment of employed personnel (in large companies) is accompanied by a great variability in work schedules; Related to the specificity of professional relationships, these characteristics define a specific micro-corporatism. The formation of wages and salaries is more sensitive to variations in benefits than to changes in the price level or the level of unemployment.
Although Japan achieved mass production and consumption, it did so in an original way that ensured the maintenance of a high level of profits, allowing for intense capital development with relatively competitive wage formation.
It is the relative shortage of labor (also sensitive in the peripheral sector) that has stimulated the growth of real wages in the most recent period; that is to say, it was not an ex-ante agreement, the result of codified collective agreements that link the global growth of wages to productivity, as in the traditional Fordist commitment.
Based on these restrictions, its strengths and its weaknesses, Japan ended up creating a production management model: "Ohnism", which would represent a revolution of the same importance as that of Taylorism. While Taylorism parcelizes work and workers, "Ohnism" transforms professional workers into multi-operators, multi-skilled professionals, into "multi-functional" workers. This multifunctionality will allow obtaining productivity margins and progressively intensify production processes.
At the same time, and like Taylorism, this process has tried to counterbalance the power of the workers and their professional knowledge. But it has also allowed, immediately after the war, the formation of an urbanized and competent working class.
The flexible time standards of Ohnism are distinguished from the rigid and prescriptive standards of Taylorism. Instead of separating the functions and stages of the production process, Japanese managers recompose production functions that are re-grouped in the shop.
All this constitutes a set of innovations (Kanban, just in time…) that are also non-Taylorian techniques. But they would not be conceivable and efficient without articulation with a micro-corporate commitment to equally novel content.
We recommend the following series of videos in which the main causal points of Japanese economic development are presented. (7 videos, 51 minutes)
