3/26/18
productivity growth:
- How do you get economic growth?
- increasing population
- or by increasing
productivity
- productivity = how much one
worker can produce, so better technology means more
productivity
- question for chapter--how did
Japan catch up with US in productivity in automobile
industry?
bicycle
history
The rest of the world was catching up once they had recovered
from WWII
Japan became the innovator in the automobile industry in the
1970s
Could improved methods from Japan be transferred to the US?
- more teamwork
- more emphasis on quality--more
of a priority, low cost less of a priority
- Japanese culture
- very traditional about their own culture but adopted
western ideas with eagerness to innovate
- less individualism, more
emphasis on working for the good of the group
why did the US auto makers lose
dominance even in the US?
- wages were higher
- quality wasn't a priority
- Japanese manufacturing became as or more
efficient than the US
- oil crisis resulted in a sudden interest in
small cars
(the Germans combined more teamwork
with strong unions)
cultural differences
Japanese companies systematically adopted new innovations
maximize worker contributions
but the Japanese methods were less used in Japanese auto plants
in the US
US efforts to adopt Japanese methods weren't thorough enough
Japan lost its advantage in the 1990s