Information Technology in Japan: Are There Lessons for the West?

Western visitors to Japan, studying what levels of information technology (IT) applications are actually on the ground, tend to come back puzzled by what they see. While they have been exhorted for the last two decades to invest in IT with the promise of a better competitive position, they have seen their Japanese counterparts inexorably gain ground, yet without seemingly investing in new information technologies as. much. How have Japanese firms been so competitive, and indeed, taught Western companies lessons on JIT (just-in-time), TQM (total quality management), concurrent engineering and global market-building, without investment in modern IT? Is it really the case that Japanese firms lag behind their US and European competitors in organizational computing? If so, why didn’t information technology take hold in Japanese corporations? Have they developed an alternative way to manage information? Is past Western practice a guide for Japanese managers, or is Japan once again giving birth to a new paradigm for effective management with information technology?