Cleaning and Corporate Management: The Historical and Theoretical Relationship Between Japanese Companies and Their Cleaning Activities

Description

This book provides a new way of understanding Japanese management by focusing on the relationship between Japanese companies and their social practices. Whereas previous studies have often concentrated on the uniqueness of Japanese companies' systems (e.g., lifetime employment, the seniority system, company-specific unions) or methods (e.g., bottom-up management, Toyota production methods), this book explains the uniqueness of Japanese companies’ activities and practices. It especially highlights the day-to-day cleaning activities that many companies have practiced for numbers of years, regardless of their size or industry. Activities that continue beyond a certain period of time are called social practices, and the book clarifies how this particular social practice has historically been formed in Japanese companies and then shows what it means to keep cherishing those cleaning practices. This study consists of two parts: historical research and theoretical research. The historical research sheds light on the relationship between Japanese companies and cleaning activities from a historical point of view. On the basis of old literature and in-house documents, the reader can understand how Japanese companies have positioned cleaning practices in the process of increasing their growth potential and competitiveness and in maintaining their businesses. The second part explains theoretically the relationship between cleaning and management with quantitative and qualitative data from Japanese companies today. Using survey results from Japanese companies, the book shows what kinds of organizations will be formed and human resources will be developed if companies have been focusing for many years on 5S activities―Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain― that include cleaning. This part of the book presents the distinctive problem-solving and strategy-creation processes of Japanese companies in contrast to the activities of European and American companies. Acknowledgments A Message to Readers of the English Version Introduction for Japanese Readers Contents Part I Historical Research 1 The Power of Cleaning: Factors Essential to Great Success in Business 1.1 Struggles of a Young Business Owner 1.1.1 Dreams of Growth 1.1.2 Brakes on Growth 1.2 Are Japanese People Disciplined? 1.2.1 Japanese Companies a Century Ago 1.2.2 The Lack of Discipline and Diligence of Japanese Workers 1.2.3 Managerial Challenges, Old and New 1.3 An Ethical Perspective 1.3.1 The Tribulations of Honda Founder and Celebrated Manager, Sōichirō Honda 1.3.2 The Difficulty of Building Large Companies in Japan 1.3.3 The Advantage of Divine Surveillance 1.4 Solidarity Through Thought or Through Action? 1.4.1 The Authority of Religion and of Cleaning 1.4.2 The Tradition of Teaching Discipline Through Cleaning 1.4.3 Is the Morning Assembly Meaningless? References 2 The Spirit of Toilet Cleaning: Escape from the Endless Competition for Differentiation 2.1 The Distinctive Attributes of Toilet Cleaning 2.1.1 Do Japanese Executives like Cleaning the Toilets? 2.1.2 “God of Management” Kōnosuke Matsushita Cleaned the Toilets 2.1.3 Toilet Cleaning: Ideal and Reality (1) “Anyone Can Do It” 2.1.4 Toilet Cleaning: Ideal and Reality (2) “A Shared Task Tangential to the Job” 2.1.5 Toilet Cleaning: Ideal and Reality (3) “The More You Clean, The Cleaner It Gets” 2.2 Is Effort Always Appreciated? 2.2.1 The Little Things Matter 2.2.2 The Touchstones of Successful Managers 2.3 A Shiny Grill in a Restaurant, Two Litters in the Company 2.3.1 What are Your Company’s Bonji Tasks? 2.3.2 Companies that Do a Thorough Job of “Bonji” Tasks 2.4 Escaping the Curse of Differentiation 2.4.1 No Ethos, No Meaning 2.4.2 Why are Companies that Clean so Strong? 2.4.3 The Illusion of the Differentiation Strategy 2.4.4 Take for Granted that Which Should Be Taken for Granted References 3 The Spirit Underlying Cleaning: How Leading Japanese Entrepreneurs Embraced It 3.1 The Dangers of Financial Capitalism for Japanese Companies 3.1.1 In Their Own Words: Leading Entrepreneurs on the Value of Cleaning 3.1.2 Weber’s Warning 3.1.3 Do Companies Really Need a “Management Philosophy”? 3.2 Japanese Companies and the History of the “5S”: What is Cleaning For? 3.2.1 Cleaning is a Silent Salesman 3.2.2 5S, 6S, 7S, and 30S! 3.2.3 Origins of the Study of Business Administration 3.2.4 Cleaning Becomes a Social Movement 3.2.5 “5S” Was Not Initially a Kaizen Activity 3.3 A Higher Value than Cleaning 3.3.1 The Relationship Between Management Philosophy and Cleaning 3.3.2 Sacrificing Profits for Something of Greater Value 3.4 Freeing Ourselves from the Profit-First Principle 3.4.1 Toward Unique Companies, Not Unique Tasks 3.4.2 The Cleaning Principles Underlying Matsushita’s ‘Tap-Water Philosophy’ References Part II Theoretical Research 4 Two-Fold Benefits: How to Gain Greater Utility from Cleaning 4.1 Lessons from a Survey of 400 Companies 4.1.1 The Current Status of Cleaning in SMEs 4.1.2 The Companies that Responded to the Survey (Q1, Q2) 4.1.3 The Implementation of Cleaning Practices (Q4, Q5) 4.1.4 Why Japanese Companies Clean, and the Effects (Q3, Q6, Q7) 4.1.5 Why Japanese Companies are Doubling Down on Cleaning (Q8) 4.2 American Management Studies: The Missing Piece 4.2.1 Management Effectiveness and Efficiency 4.2.2 Not Much Fun, But Good Nevertheless 4.3 The Direct and Indirect Utility of Cleaning 4.3.1 Unexpected Answers 4.3.2 Direct and Indirect Utility 4.3.3 Clean During Business Hours, or After? 4.4 An Alternative Approach to Human-Resource Development 4.4.1 Does Mind Guide Action or Action Guide Mind? 4.4.2 Somatic Psychology 4.4.3 Japanese Cleaning as Pragmatism Reference 5 Three Ways that Cleaning Strengthens Problem-Solving 5.1 Lessons from a Quarter Century of Cleaning 5.1.1 Cleaning Even on Holidays 5.1.2 Giving It Their All, Even When It’s Not Fun 5.2 Cleaning as Self-Improvement 5.2.1 Enjoyment 5.2.2 Self-Improvement 5.3 Cleaning for Others, Bringing Out the Power of Others (Tariki) 5.3.1 Routine 5.3.2 Tariki 5.4 Three Types of Corporate Members 5.4.1 Cleaning: For Whose Sake, By What Power? 5.4.2 Problem Solving for Existing Issues 5.4.3 Problem Solving for Dynamic Issues References 6 The “Habit Loop”: Building Sustainability 6.1 Small Things Matter: The Daily Log 6.1.1 Concerns Raised at the “Cleaning University for Managers” 6.1.2 Too Routine? 6.2 Experienced Companies and Companies New to Cleaning 6.2.1 Does Cleaning Have to Happen in the Morning? 6.2.2 Comparing Experienced Companies with Companies New to Cleaning I: The Difficulty of Sustaining Bonji Tasks 6.2.3 Cleaning Only, or Cleaning Plus (Sorting and Organizing) 6.2.4 Comparing Experienced Companies with Companies New to Cleaning II: The “It Can’t Be Helped” Excuse 6.2.5 Comparing Experienced Companies with Companies New to Cleaning III: The Company’s Basic Issues, Revealed 6.3 Changes Sparked by Cleaning 6.3.1 Change 1: Strong Company Loyalty 6.3.2 Change 2: Wisdom and Integrity 6.3.3 Change 3: Acceptance and Innovation 6.4 A Culture of Leading by Example and Giving Praise 6.4.1 The Power of Habit 6.4.2 A “Habit Loop” for Cleaning 6.4.3 Have You Praised Your Subordinates This Week? 6.5 Cleaning in Japanese Companies 6.5.1 Giving Meaning to the Mundane 6.5.2 Means-Oriented Cleaning Reference 7 Beyond Japan: Cleaning, American-Style 7.1 Two Case Studies 7.1.1 Disneyland 7.1.2 Godiva 7.2 Taylor, The Father of Scientific Management, Espoused Cleaning 7.2.1 Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Theories Today 7.2.2 Goal-Oriented Cleaning 7.3 The Limitations of American Management Theory 7.3.1 A “Harmful Kind of Intellectual Snobbishness” 7.3.2 The Goals-Orientation and Its Limits References 8 Slow Management: Essential for Our Times 8.1 Cleaning and “Strategy as Practice” 8.1.1 Practice and Praxis 8.1.2 American- and Japanese-Style Decision-Making 8.2 A “Problem-Solving” Perspective on Cleaning 8.2.1 Four Patterns of Environmental Adaptation 8.2.2 Heuristics 8.2.3 Effectuation 8.3 Essential for Modern Corporate Management in VUCA 8.3.1 Cleaning as a Practice, Cleaning as a Heuristic 8.3.2 Action and Imagination in Problem Solving 8.4 The Value of Slow Management 8.4.1 Slow Management in Times of Rapid Change 8.4.2 “Quit Worrying, Just Give It a Try!” References Afterword Afterword for the English Edition “The Three Ethos of Management and Cleaning” References