Japanese Management Styles: to Change or Not to Change? A Subsidiary Control Perspective

Abstract

This study examines whether the Japanese management style should be reconsidered in emerging markets, from the subsidiary control perspective. Japanese companies have a specific management style and they are used to bringing their specific management style into overseas businesses. However, considering the dynamism of emerging markets and the feature of Japanese management that is to stabilize the business situation by strong headquarters’ control, the transfer of the Japanese management style might be unsuitable for them. Instead, a more adaptive approach might be needed. Using overseas subsidiary control theory, we develop the hypothetical structure of the phenomenon that happens there. We then examine our hypotheses using survey data from Japanese subsidiaries.The results show that the transfer of Japanese way does not contribute to improving subsidiary performance in emerging markets, but the departure from it does. In addition, the acceptance of local culture, headquarters’ decentralization, and creating local partnership promote thatdeparture. Keywords: