East Asia

Asian countries have had an important influence on managing studies throughout the last decades, especially the Japanese model which is characterized by the way they:

• Give priority to the market share.

• Always pursue objectives beyond the optimization of the stock value.

• Pay special attention to their relationships with suppliers with whom they always look for long- term associations.

• Consider that blue-collar employees and middle managers have important roles and have the capabilities to provide good feedback to keep improving the processes.

• See consensus and loyalty as means to succeed as an organization.

In turn, Korean management style was shaped from the Japanese one since Korea was a colony since 1910 up to 1945, enough time to receive all the influence of Japan which helped to shape the modern structure of Korean organizations, a structure that has made these companies so competitive and determinant in the current globalized economy.

• Korean government gives financial support to the private companies facilitating access to credits to improve the possibilities of greater investments.

• For employees, lifetime inside organizations is more flexible than under de Japanese management style model.

• The top managers are more authoritarians and strict than in Japan where the decision making is made according to a very flat organizational structure.

• The most important companies in Korea are owned by members of those families that set them up.

In Korea, as well as it happened in Japan with the Zaibatsu, a group of companies merged as something called Chaebol, having several ties with the government in order to promote their growth.

Explain the phenomenon of convergence in terms of management styles. What are the forces or factors pushing for convergence?

Convergence happens when a country’s management model is so effective and show so good results, that this is immediately implemented by other countries. This fact will make that many of them feel some pressure about implementing the model or the style since the standard conditions of the market requires of updated companies if these ones want to survive to those changing conditions.

Explain the phenomenon of differentiation in terms of management styles. What are the forces of factors pushing for differentiation?

Differentiation is a strategy by which companies make a segmentation of the market in order to reach more alternatives and give the organization the chance of not relying only on one or few products but also on several choices that permit to respond and resist to the market dynamics and changes.