3 ms·

What do you attribute this to?

jdietrich 2y ago
Japanese corporate culture has historically been defined by extreme loyalty - salarymen were recruited directly from university and were promised a job for life. Promotion was overwhelmingly from within and based substantially on seniority, with a steep power gradient. If you were trying to design a system to produce proprietary silos, you'd struggle to beat large Japanese corporations circa 1980.
- numpad0 2y ago
  The lore I've heard is that hire-for-life system was supposed to create psychological safety as a response to excessive siloing habits exhibited by WWII veterans, after surviving in reverse order of their individual bus factors - e.g. skilled maintenance crews, medics, were more likely to be spared in last-ditch assaults, which happened a lot in the war. IMO, that after series of economic downturns and corporate restructurings during 80s-00s in turn created excessively risk-averse Japanese corporate culture; now that they can be fired, psychological safety was gone, and now maintaining hire-for-life eligibility was seen as crucial. It may have been implicitly reinterpreted as eliminating others is a must for survival. That's clearly one of major contributing factors to counter-productive behaviors causing stagnation of traditional Japanese tech companies; outright refusing sales, exports, opportunities, that may affect internal politics and justify job terminations. It sucks to watch a lot of cutting edge technologies slowly evaporating from such fear of terminations. Hopefully someone figures a way out.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >Hopefully someone figures a way out. The only realistic solution I've seen so far is placing Japanese companies under foreign control. Kioxia is an absurd example. It went from being Toshiba's rejected-and-dejected NAND flash division to a world leading company literally overnight once it was bought out by an American investment firm (Bain Capital). On that note, Toshiba proper is in the process of getting bought out and chopped up by Japan Industrial Partners, which is really just a front for an American investment firm (Bain & Company) among others. Olympus also suffered the same fate several years ago. Another is Sharp, which managed to claw back from bankruptcy once China/Taiwan (Foxconn) bought them out. Yet another is Nissan, which became relevant on the world stage after getting effectively bought out by France (Renault, Carlos Ghosn). Nissan probably would have gone even bigger if Ghosn and Renault had succeeded in totally taking them over. Even 7/11 (Seven & i Holdings) which was a rare reverse success story of Japanese management bailing out a failing American business is now in dire straits and risking a hostile takeover from a Canadian business (Couche-Tard). Japan has the technology, engineers, and designers; what Japan doesn't have is an appropriate culture. It's frustrating watching as a Japanese-American.
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      There is one thing that I've seen and heard Japanese and Korean companies having over Western ones: a lack of infighting and turf wars. Everybody pulls in the same direction for the most part. That part of their culture is a really strong suit - it's not only the capable individuals.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        >a lack of infighting and turf wars. If I didn't know better I would think you were trolling. Japanese companies absolutely have infightings and turf wars the likes of which make western ones look like child's play. Toshiba literally hated their NAND flash division (former Toshiba Memory, now Kioxia) despite being one of their only consistently valuable assets. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) despises Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) because SIE perceives SMEJ with its subsidary Aniplex to be encroaching upon their core business of video games. Subaru for the longest time brushed away their team working on EyeSight, now a standard feature and widely heralded, because they perceived the guys working on it as infatuated dead weights. ANA and JAL loathe each other (also with a healthy mix of commercial vs. governmental rivalry due to their history) and will drag each other down at every turn. I can go on but I think you can get the idea: Japanese companies really do not like playing together.

Japanese corporate culture has historically been defined by extreme loyalty - salarymen were recruited directly from university and were promised a job for life. Promotion was overwhelmingly from within and based substantially on seniority, with a steep power gradient. If you were trying to design a system to produce proprietary silos, you'd struggle to beat large Japanese corporations circa 1980.

numpad0 2y ago
The lore I've heard is that hire-for-life system was supposed to create psychological safety as a response to excessive siloing habits exhibited by WWII veterans, after surviving in reverse order of their individual bus factors - e.g. skilled maintenance crews, medics, were more likely to be spared in last-ditch assaults, which happened a lot in the war. IMO, that after series of economic downturns and corporate restructurings during 80s-00s in turn created excessively risk-averse Japanese corporate culture; now that they can be fired, psychological safety was gone, and now maintaining hire-for-life eligibility was seen as crucial. It may have been implicitly reinterpreted as eliminating others is a must for survival. That's clearly one of major contributing factors to counter-productive behaviors causing stagnation of traditional Japanese tech companies; outright refusing sales, exports, opportunities, that may affect internal politics and justify job terminations. It sucks to watch a lot of cutting edge technologies slowly evaporating from such fear of terminations. Hopefully someone figures a way out.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >Hopefully someone figures a way out. The only realistic solution I've seen so far is placing Japanese companies under foreign control. Kioxia is an absurd example. It went from being Toshiba's rejected-and-dejected NAND flash division to a world leading company literally overnight once it was bought out by an American investment firm (Bain Capital). On that note, Toshiba proper is in the process of getting bought out and chopped up by Japan Industrial Partners, which is really just a front for an American investment firm (Bain & Company) among others. Olympus also suffered the same fate several years ago. Another is Sharp, which managed to claw back from bankruptcy once China/Taiwan (Foxconn) bought them out. Yet another is Nissan, which became relevant on the world stage after getting effectively bought out by France (Renault, Carlos Ghosn). Nissan probably would have gone even bigger if Ghosn and Renault had succeeded in totally taking them over. Even 7/11 (Seven & i Holdings) which was a rare reverse success story of Japanese management bailing out a failing American business is now in dire straits and risking a hostile takeover from a Canadian business (Couche-Tard). Japan has the technology, engineers, and designers; what Japan doesn't have is an appropriate culture. It's frustrating watching as a Japanese-American.
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    There is one thing that I've seen and heard Japanese and Korean companies having over Western ones: a lack of infighting and turf wars. Everybody pulls in the same direction for the most part. That part of their culture is a really strong suit - it's not only the capable individuals.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      >a lack of infighting and turf wars. If I didn't know better I would think you were trolling. Japanese companies absolutely have infightings and turf wars the likes of which make western ones look like child's play. Toshiba literally hated their NAND flash division (former Toshiba Memory, now Kioxia) despite being one of their only consistently valuable assets. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) despises Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) because SIE perceives SMEJ with its subsidary Aniplex to be encroaching upon their core business of video games. Subaru for the longest time brushed away their team working on EyeSight, now a standard feature and widely heralded, because they perceived the guys working on it as infatuated dead weights. ANA and JAL loathe each other (also with a healthy mix of commercial vs. governmental rivalry due to their history) and will drag each other down at every turn. I can go on but I think you can get the idea: Japanese companies really do not like playing together.