Description
This essay discusses the effects of Japanese investment in the American south, and how the Japanese have been met with various challenges in their attempt to operate in the region. It also discusses the various perceptions of the Japanese in the south, and how these perceptions have changed over time.
In spite of Japanese investment in America and the debate on the competitive edge of Japanese enterprise, we know little about the actual people who are managing and working in Japanese plants.
Japanese Industry in the American South describes the industrial cultures found in three Japanese industrial plants in the American South. Choong Soon Kim discusses why Japanese industries are coming to the South, to what extent Japanese industrial management in the South replicates the industrial relations model used in the home plants in Japan, and examines the reactions of Americans toward the Japanese expatriates. The Japanese have had a profound effect on Southerners. Meeting the challenges of the Japanese has led Americans to rediscover their own strengths and weaknesses.
Japanese Industry in the American South offers a different perspective. Western scholars have emphasized the positive aspects of traditional values and practices for Japanese industry, and haveeven romanticized their effects. Utilizing his bicultural experience, Choong Soon Kim discusses how the American public tends to over-estimate Japanese knowledge about American culture and the Japanese ability to be competitive with their American counterparts. He also talks about the idea many Americans still have that Japanese industrialists are so knowledgeable about the South that they can exploit what are seen as southern characteristics: white, rural, polite and non-union--of people who are supposedly eager to work hard for low wages. Conversely, the numerous concessions, compromises, and accommodations required by the Japanese are exposed and analyzed here.
Japanese Industry in the American South reveals a more balanced view of Japan's success as well as struggles to remain competitive in an American setting.
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