Keyword: «japanese management model»

The Japanese model of management is a not yet fully studied the phenomenon. The reasons for this lie not only in the variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of national models of management, but also pronounced the uniqueness of Japanese culture. This uniqueness is manifested both in traditional Japanese society closed to foreigners, and layered culture itself the land of the rising sun, which includes religious dogmas Shinto, Zen-Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Without a thorough study of these religious plants our perceptions of Japanese management model will be fragmentary. The author of the article attempts to describe the origins of the Japanese model of management, associated with Shinto.

For a long time in the scientific, popular science and educational literature, the Japanese model of management was considered the benchmark of effective management. The authors of these works suggested actively introducing elements of this model into the practice of Russian companies. «Quality circles», «just-in-time system», «lean production», «gemba-method», «life-long employment and advancement systems» became the basis for understanding successful business in numerous academic disciplines and management training in the Russian Federation. However, the events of the last decades make us consider and evaluate Japanese management in a different way. Firstly, in Japan itself, an active transformation of the existing model began to occur. It increasingly began to be built on the Western model, above all, of American companies. Although originally in the 1970-1980s. scientists assumed the opposite process: the Japanese model should have triumphed over the American approach to management. Secondly, the Japanese business and the Japanese economy as a whole began to give up their positions in front of the Chinese threat. The classic success factors of any business (capital, technology, personnel and demand) turned out to be more significant in the global competitive struggle than the sociocultural factors that the Japanese model initially relied on. Third, the Fourth Industrial Revolution put forward fundamentally new requirements for enterprise management, which do not fit into either the American, or Japanese, or Western European management models, whose origins are associated with the second half of the 20th century. Thus, in the conditions of implementation in the Russian Federation of the digital economy, it is necessary to revise the basic provisions on the Japanese model of management, which are presented in educational literature. The purpose of the article is a comprehensive analysis of the Japanese model of management and the selection of its sides, the study of which can help Russian managers to create a more effective business model in a digital economy. When writing the article, the author used the analysis of modern literature on the problems of the Japanese model of management.