Corporate planning in major Japanese enterprises

Abstract

The practice of organized corporate planning in major Japanese enterprises is more sophisticated, further developed, and better accepted than most Westerners recognize. Just as we can learn from Japanese management, we can also learn from Japanese corporate planning. Our research reveals that formal planning was started in Japan before most American or European managers embraced the concept, that the best Japanese practices represent the forefront of the state of the art, and that the current emphasis in Japanese planning is highly entrepreneurial and strategic. As of the mid‐1970s, corporate planning in Japan is very popular, well integrated into the Japanese managerial system, and highly geared to diversification strategies at home and resource‐ and market‐based strategies internationally (see Appendix A). The so‐called Japanese challenge may have abated in traditional form. A study of current corporate planning practices, however, suggests that Western managers would make a mistake in discounting the challenge altogether.

Citation

Ringbakk, K.‐. (1975), "Corporate planning in major Japanese enterprises", Planning Review, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 10-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb053724