Learning from Asian management practices in the 21st century: What Western corporate sphere needs to know to achieve economic growth and enhanced performance

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to identify contemporary key features of businesses located in selected countries of Asia, namely Japan and China the second and third largest economies by GDP (nominal) in the world - and their consequences to corporate world by conducting a review of existing empirical evidence on this topic. As the importance of Asian economies has been growing in the global marketplace recently, it is necessary to focus attention on understanding the changing management practices of Asian countries that may provide lessons or inspiration to Western business sphere in the fields of economic growth and performance. An in-depth review of key academic and other literature on the subject of management practices and changes in Japanese and Chinese corporation as well as on performance and strategic thinking in Japan and China was pursued following a multiple-step process. Furthermore, the research involved semi-structured interviews with managers of Japanese companies in order to support and verify the results obtained from the literature review. Finally, the main lessons learned were synthesized, limitations and a number of recommendations were provided and directions to future research were presented.