Japanese Management Techniques and British Workers

Andy Danford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317727729
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Analyzing the impact of Japanese-style management techniques such as lean production, teamworking, kaizen (continuous improvement) and business unionism of factory workers, this text investigates different facets of the organization of the labour process and employment relations within 15 Japanese transplants in South Wales. There is an emphasis on the impact of the restructuring of workplace relations on both individual groups of workers and collective labour organization. The text provides an insight into the reality of factory life in the 1990s by incorporating descriptions of shop-floor observations, quantitive data and revealing comments from different grades of shop-floor workers, office workers and management.

1

JAPANESE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES AND THE PARADOXICAL ABSENCE OF LABOUR

This book is about contemporary factory work. It investigates the different ways in which Japanese-influenced shifts in work organization and employment relations impact upon the working lives of factory employees. On one level, it seeks to build on our knowledge of the labour processes, the organization of technology, the employment of new working practices and the structure of industrial relations in Japanese manufacturing transplants in the UK. On another level – and the bulk of the book focuses on this – it explores the process of emulation of these facets of Japanese production by a long-established British manufacturing company. The enquiry examines the market-led influences and the underlying political forces which catalyse the diffusion of practices, it considers the various mechanisms of diffusion, and it considers managerial strategy and agency here as well. But above all, it systematically analyses the views and actions of factory workers; those who have the greatest stake in employment, but more often than not, the least say over the direction of change on the shop-floor of the 1990s.

The book asks a number of pertinent questions of the assumptions that prevail in much contemporary business analysis of the management of change on the shop-floor. For example, is there any substance to the fashionable maxim ‘working smarter rather than harder’, or to the idea of shop-floor ‘empowerment’, or to notions of a more democratic ‘new industrial relations’? More specifically, what effect do Japanese-style new management techniques have on effort rates, on skills, on employee autonomy and on social relations between workers, their unions and management? To put this another way, does the restructuring of work and employment relations best seem to generate harmony and trust on the shop-floor? Or is it best understood to lie on a continuum of capitalist exploitation and subordination of labour accompanied by inherent processes of class struggle and resistance?

This agenda inevitably emphasizes processes at the point of production. However, the analysis is careful not to abstract these from wider political and economic influences. The imbalance of power between capital and labour over the past two decades has ensured that although workers enjoy little influence over events outside the factory gates, different employers and their principal guardian – the capitalist state – have had a profound influence over their working lives. The book, therefore, also investigates how factors such as changing product markets, depressed labour markets, new supplier–customer relations, the dominance of the customer over the producer and the state’s role in shaping developments in industrial relations, have all impacted upon social action and the politics of production on the shop-floor.

During the 1980s, the salient position of Japanese manufacturers as increasingly powerful – and sometimes dominant – global competitors was noted with a mixture of interest and alarm by Western politicians, industrialists and trade union leaders. It also resulted in Japanese management methods acquiring a central place in a good many managerialist academic studies of developments in advanced capitalist commodity production. The influence of such studies has in turn contributed to a prevailing belief that as well as affording competitive advantage to employers, for those who labour in the contemporary locales of lean mass production, Japanese-style work organization can be an ‘empowering’, ‘enriching’ alternative to the alienation and degradation associated with conventional Taylorism.

One notable example of this assumption is provided by the authors of the International Motor Vehicle Programme of research into productivity and management practices in the car industry. Womack et al. (1990) present lean production as a pre-eminent, high-productivity manufacturing system which is now dominant in Japan and which, these authors argue, can and must be emulated by manufacturers in the West. They describe a model of lean production which, through the operation of such working practices as just-in-time, teamworking and continuous improvement, removes all slack, all human and material waste, from the manufacturing operation. Moreover – and it is this which has caught the attention of many contemporary industrial sociologists – by placing the ‘dynamic work team’ at the heart of the lean factory, they argue that shop-floor work in this highly stressed system somehow becomes ‘enriched’ and ‘de-Taylorized’ by incorporating new conceptual tasks and responsibilities:

While the mass-production plant is often filled with mind-numbing stress, as workers struggle to assemble unmanufacturable products and have no way to improve their working environment, lean production offers a creative tension in which workers have many ways to address challenges. This creative tension involved in solving complex problems is precisely what has separated manual factory work from professional ‘think’ work in the age of mass production. (Womack et al., 1990, p. 101)

A similar line of argument permeates Kenney and Florida’s (1993) more substantial analysis of the management of work and labour in Japanese transplant operations in the USA. In many respects, these authors exceed the evangelism of Womack et al. by insisting that not only is Western emulation of Japanese management necessary in terms of advancing industrial efficiency but it is also an inevitable outcome of the capitalist dynamic of technological and organizational progress. Drawing on Gramsci’s exposition of Fordism as the most advanced system of production of its time – which, with or without the cultural supports of ‘Americanism’ was destined to penetrate the West as a distinctive mode of production organization (Gramsci, 1971) – Kenney and Florida argue that the diffusion of Japan’s new management paradigm has the same inevitability about it.

In attempting to answer the question of why this should be, Kenney and Florida locate the advantages of lean production in the shifting social relations between intellectual and manual labour which are assumed to underlie Japanese technological and organizational efficiency. They conceptualize Japanese manufacturing practice within a framework of ‘innovation-mediated production’ characterized essentially by the integration and harnessing of the intelligence and knowledge of R&D staff, design engineers and shop-floor workers. Through the organizational mechanism of the multi-functional team, the shop-floor is transformed into a continuously innovative production laboratory. This creates advantages for both labour and capital:

The new model has transformed ordinary workers’ knowledge and intelligence into a source of value, created new methods of work, and established a very efficient system for turning the potential value embodied in innovations into mass-produced commodities that are the source of tremendous profit and capital accumulation. (Kenney and Florida, 1993, p. 9)

Described in this way – and with very little qualitative analysis of employee consciousness to substantiate the argument – Japanese work organization sounds an appealing and laudable alternative to the dehumanizing organizational principles of Taylorism. But to what extent do such interpretations reflect reality, or, by contrast, represent mere ideological constructions of industrial development (Stewart, 1996)? This is a problematic question because, in fact, we hear very little about the fundamental dictates and social dynamics of capitalist work organization in the above accounts; it is as if the factories of today are organized solely with social responsibility and welfare in mind rather than pumping ever more labour out of workers in the pursuit of profit. To be fair to Kenney and Florida, although it is only a secondary consideration, they do eventually turn their attention to the more negative consequences of the diffusion of Japanese management practices: labour intensification; health and injury risks; ideological control of workers; strict absence and attendance policies; the exploitation of temporary labour; unequal opportunities for black workers; and anti-trade-unionism.

This is a long list. Moreover, these admissions beg an important question. If Japanese ‘innovation-mediated production’ produces ‘bads’ as well as ‘goods’ then how do those human beings who labour under this system react to this? Are they so acquiescent and submissive that Japanese managements can literally raise the intensity of production with impunity? We are not told. The irony here is that in conceptualizing a manufacturing system that theoretically constitutes the anti-thesis of Braverman’s (1974) imperative of direct management control under scientific management, the authors – and many others – effectively follow the latter writer’s tendency to objectify labour and abstract the analysis of work from the concrete reality of continuing class struggle and resistance. In other words, in neglecting both the material condition and factory-based class consciousness of workers affected by the process of change, this living labour becomes conspicuously absent from the enquiry.

At least the implications of worker resistance take a more prominent position within Oliver and Wilkinson’s (1992) influential study of the ‘Japanization of British Industry’. These authors also deal in universalistic models. Their paradigm of Japanese manufacturing practices follows a similar pattern to the above American writers. It idealizes a system which completely synchronizes production with the demands of the market and which aims towards the complete elimination of waste in production. This is achieved through the application of a full repertoire of production practices which will be considered in some detail throughout this book: Total Quality Management (TQM) and continuous improvement (kaizen); production checks such as statistical process control (SPC); just-in-time production (JIT); labour flexibility; and multi-skilling through teamworking and job rotation. Oliver and Wilkinson argue that, cumulatively, these practices create a fragile production system which may be severely exposed to labour disruption. Consequently, the model incorporates supporting human resource management (HRM) practices which seek employee acquiescence and commitment; practices such as long-term job security for core workers, careful employee recruitment and selection techniques, performance-related pay, direct communications and enterprise unionism. Risk-avoidance also extends to buyers/assemblers maintaining long-term relationships with suppliers and close scrutiny of their manufacturing costs and employment policies. Thus, in theory at least, the high dependency strategies of Japanese production methods ‘demand a set of social (and technical) relations to support the fragile production system. Under this system, strategies for living with uncertainty are swept away’ (1992, p. 323).

On the basis of data accumulated from longitudinal survey techniques and a small number of limited case studies, Oliver and Wilkinson quantify an increase in the use of the above practices amongst both British employers and UK-based Japanese transplants. This leads them to assert that a ‘Japanization of British industry’ is in progress.

The problem with this rudimentary methodology is that it raises as many questions as it solves. Firstly, the analysis makes no attempt to explore variations in management practice between firms in different manufacturing sectors. For example, as Milkman (1991) discovered, rather than conforming to universalistic models, Japanese electronics assembly transplants in the USA were more influenced by the efficiency-based parameters of conventional production lines and the traditional social relations of the host country. In these conditions, fragmented assembly-line work, American anti-trade-unionism and limited employee involvement remained a simple, logical and effective method of labour control.

The authors’ idealization of trust-building long-term customer-supplier relations raises further problems. Suppliers are supposed to gain here by enjoying such advantages as more predictable markets, help and advice from the customer, financial security, and so on, although they are also under constant pressure to produce the right quantities of goods on time. But this oft-quoted feature of ‘stakeholder capitalism’ (Hutton, 1995) rarely takes into consideration those who hold a stake in employment within supplier companies. Oliver and Wilkinson inform us that buyer/assemblers may often pre-empt disruption to JIT supplies by attacking traditional industrial relations practices at their supplying companies. If this is the case, then we need a more thorough investigation of the implications of such innovations for shop-floor social action in the many affected factories.

The same limitations to the authors’ methodology raise a more fundamental criticism. The argument that the high-dependency nature of Japanese production methods operates within supportive HRM policies creating ‘a functional fit between production methods and the social relations in which they are embedded’ (1992, p. 323) constitutes the most original aspect of their thesis. They are not totally alone here. For example, Dohse et al. (1985) believe that ‘only a comprehensive perspective that includes both the organization of the labour process and the organization of labour relations can adequately explain the functioning of the Japanese model’ (1985, p. 134).¹ But if this is the case, then rather than rely on quantitative analysis to construct a facile functionalist fit between different sets of management practices we need to examine exactly how such innovations function on the shop-floor. In so doing, we might penetrate a further conundrum within Oliver and Wilkinson’s argument. That is, if the new, ‘Japanized’ labour process really is characterized by more skill, more responsibility and more interest, to the extent that ‘Japanese practices seem to hold out the opportunity for improved quality of life’ (1992, p. 326), then why does this shop-floor empowerment require propping up by special ideological measures? Should we not expect worker commitment to emerge naturally from the enriched labour process? On the other hand, if, in reality, the labour process is low-skilled, multi-tasked, intensified and alienating then the ‘cultural logic’ of extensive employee involvement may also make little sense. These contradictions and ambiguities can only be resolved by moving away from the managerialist agenda and considering the standpoint of labour. If we wish to understand the real logic of the new HRM practices then we must turn our attention to their recipients, that is, we have to thoroughly investigate their concrete impact on the consciousness and social action of the human resource.

Despite some differences in detail, the above expositions share a common approach in their construction of a distinctive paradigm of Japanese work organization and employment relations. This is based on the general principles of flexible, low-waste production; enlarged and participatory labour processes; and cooperative employment relations. Although some authors may be critical of these principles, and others find them elusive in practice, the paradigmatic approach nevertheless dominates research in this area (see for example, Schonberger, 1982; Lincoln and Kalleberg, 1990; Milkman, 1991; Bratton, 1992; Jurgens et al. 1993; Graham, 1994 and 1995; and Morris et al., 1994). Moreover, rather than measure concrete practice in Japan against these ideal type constructions, many researchers either prescribe, or attempt to substantiate, a process of international convergence through Western emulation of the Japanese paradigm: a ‘Japanization’ of industry.

Before we consider particular case study evidence of this emulation process and its effect on factory labour, we need to take a more critical look at its underlying assumptions. Some writers deny the Japanese any influence over contemporary workplace restructuring. For example, de-emphasizing investigation into changes within organizations, Ackroyd et al. (1988) shift the enquiry towards the national economic structure. They argue that fundamental differences between an integrated Japanese economy – characterized by high levels of coordination between banking, manufacturing and traditional capital – and a highly fragmented British economy, present decisive limits on any attempts by British firms to respond to the Japanese challenge through emulation. However, the problem with this approach is that although changes at the organizational level are mediated by the structural features of the political economy, as they are by structural changes in product markets, labour markets, state industrial policies and so on, this does not mean that investigations at this level must necessarily become secondary. If we wish to investigate the hypothesis that Japanese work organization and labour performance may be having a significant global impact, then whether or not we call this ‘Japanization’, our first port of call must be the workplace. And if corporate aims to raise labour productivity and profitability constitute the dynamic behind attempted emulation, then developments in the process of extracting surplus value at the point of production must surely be our prime, though not sole, focus of investigation.

This clarifies the level of analysis employed in this book but it does not deny external structural influences on work organization. Serious questions do need to be asked of the paradigmatic approach. Can we accurately speak of a universalistic Japanese model to which competing Western manufacturers aspire? Do not the concrete ramifications of different sectoral practices, different technologies, product markets, labour markets, national state policies, industrial relations traditions, and indeed, distinctive single corporate cultures and logics, together undermine notions of universalism and convergence? If, as Elger and Smith (1994b) observe in their conceptualization of ‘Disaggregated Japanization’, Japanese transnational corporations are equivalent in intent to their Western counterparts in that, ‘Japanese firms take advantage of different regions of the globe for market and cost reasons, and selectively adjust their factory regimes to fit into these local conditions’ (1994b, p. 38), does this eliminate any organizational distinctiveness? Moreover, if, as the same authors suggest, emulating firms mobilize fears of the Japanese ‘competitive threat’ more as an ideological component in their attempts to reinforce traditional management prerogatives, whilst merely borrowing certain elements of the Japanese model in piecemeal fashion, does this render the concept of ‘Japanization’ completely redundant?

These questions should certainly alert us to the fact that it would be wrong to ‘overinterpret what are certainly significant innovations, to read them uncritically as the precursors of a wholesale transformation of work and employment relations, and thus to gloss over substantial continuities, real variations and persistent sources of conflict in the contemporary restructuring of work and employment’ (Elger and Smith, 1994a, p. 5). But it might also be a mistake to assume that the influence of the Japanese is therefore restricted to the realm of managerial ideology, that particular Japanese-style management innovations have had minimal concrete impact on the lives of British factory workers.

On the basis of the personal experience outlined in the Introduction, this author came to doubt the suspicion that management’s understanding of Japanese manufacturing performance and new working practices was passed on to subordinates solely in ideological terms. Even if companies rarely implement complete ‘Japanese packages’ in paradigmatic fashion, the ensuing, more fragmented changes can still significantly undermine rank-and-file power on the shop-floor with detrimental consequences for thousands of workers. When Japanese managements set up their manufacturing transplants abroad, they may often maintain the organizational and industrial relations traditions of both their particular sector and the host country, but they are also careful to sweep away those particular traditions which are hostile to their intensive capital accumulation strategies. For example, there is hardly a Japanese transplant operating on a greenfield site in the UK whic...