This text questions the authenticity of the popular image of Japanese personnel and management development, which has been held up as a model in Europe, the US and elsewhere. It uses a comparative approach to address such topics as different systems of selection and recruitment, and contrasting approaches to management control. Japan and Britain provide useful contrasts which highlight the national cultural, sector and organizational factors at play in the performance of managers. Informed by extensive research, the book also provides an understanding of Japanese management and Western practice, and analyzes in depth the totality of processes which shape management practice and employee relationships worldwide.
Industry Reviews
`This is a very well structured piece of research on potential differences in how managers are "made" in the UK compared with Japan....This is an excellent and much needed piece of work, particularly because it is comparative in nature as well as simply looking at Japanese processes without relating them to the wider world - a significant extension of the comments made in the original Charles Handly led study on the making of managers' - Industrial and Commercial Training `It is refreshing to read a book on Britain and Japan that does not rest its analysis solely on comparisons at the national level....a welcome addition to the literature that explores the attitudes of managers in organizational contexts, and considers the variation between sectors instead of just stereotyping the Japanese' - Human Resource Management Journal `This book, written mostly by academics at Warick University, provides a detailed comparative study of the careers, training, developmental experience and job demands of managers in eight named companies, matching a British firm with a japanese counterpart. Using qualitative and quantitative data, it offers an understanding of management development within organizational, sectoral and national contexts. Managers' perceptions, reactions and concerns are recorded and analysed throughtout' - IDS Study Personnel Publications 1997 `Managers in the Making goes below the surface to provide an in-depth study of four pairs of matched companies from Britain and Japan.... For me, the key lessons of Managers in the Making are: management development must be long term, not subject to fads and fashions; people need to be developed before they become managers; broad experience and challenging assignments are needed early in a person's career; senior managers should be given responsibility for developing junior managers and then assessed on their performance.... The authors, in cutting through all the management development pseudo-psychological mumbo jumbo,have performed a great service' - People Management 'This is easily the best book of its kind since Dore... it comes from a well-structured piece of collaborative research, carried out by a strong team. Inevitably, they find that the reality is more complex than the stereotypes, but the stereotype is not totally misplaced. Japanese management development is more systematic and continuous' - Professor Andrew Thomson, President of the British Academy of Management 'This should be a must-read for the corporate leaders of Britain. The authors hold up a mirror of Japanese policy and culture to draw comparisons and contrasts with British lack of long-term thinking and integration. Many British managers evidently do not have a clear idea of what is important for their career, or even who "owns" it.'- Roger Young, Director General of the Institute of Management, UK
