LEARNING FROM JAPAN? INTERPRETATIONS OF HONDA MOTORS BY STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT THEORISTS

Following the growth of Japanese automobile and electronics manufacturers on world markets during the 1970s and 1980s, western management theorists sought to explain how these companies were able to penetrate markets previously dominated by entrenched North American and European firms, as well as to identify transferable lessons from their success. The Honda Motor Company attracted the particular attention of strategic management theorists, in both the academic and consulting worlds. Strategy theorists frequently claim that their work is very close to real world management practice. This paper evaluates whether the picture of Honda Motors’ business practices that has been painted by the strategy theorists is accurate. It reviews a number of case studies and references to Honda and the inferences drawn from these. It then offers a critical analysis which focuses on both empirical inaccuracies and a theoretical tendency to reduce complex company behaviour to simple one-sided explanations, often quite contradictory to explanations of Honda offered by other strategy thinkers. The final part of the paper addresses the issue of why the western strategy theorists have adopted the particular approaches to learning from Japan that are exemplified in the Honda case.