What Is America's Competitive Advantage

The fundamentals of Japanese and American social hierarchy are different. In Japan the social structure is based off of a hierarchy, and older people are treated with more respect than younger people. On the other hand, in the USA social status is derived from multiple factors; age not being one of them. In addition to the way social status is decided in Japan, the way people treat each other is also vastly different than in the USA. In Japan people treat each other with much more respect and curtsy than in the USA. furthermore the hierarchal nature of Japanese society even extends into the business world. An excerpt from the textbook, Global Business Language, shows this: “ They want to know who has the higher social status and where they themselves need to fit in among the people involved in the

I've always been a calm and collective individual, favoring the slow and calculated approach to problem solving, assuring the problem is achieved to maximum success. As such, I'm the kind of person to try everything first hand, in order to find out the true best way in order to accomplish a task, despite what a guide may say. However, I also have the intelligence to do so in a productive way. They say you shouldn't reinvent the wheel, and to build upon others success, at some point someone tried just that, and was able to create a 'better' wheel. At the end of the day, it is still a wheel, but it's this innovation that drives the world forward. I'm an innovator. I'll be the guy trying the thing no one thought of, using some method someone dismissed as 'xp waste' and still be able to put some spin on it in order to create something that is better than everything else.

Porters Generic Competitive Strategies: The relative position of a company within its industry concludes whether the profitability of the firm is above or below the industry’s average. The above average profitability of the firm is fundamentally showing the sustainable competitive advantage in its long run. According to Michael Porter, competitive advantages originate from the value of a firm and there are two types of competitive advantages, which a company can own. These are low cost or differentiation. For any company, in

Although, the Japanese business culture involves a more democratic and participative approach to the decision making process by seeking consensus based on who’s allowed at the table. There is a strong seniority system, stresses in rank, and the upper level management is tasked with looking after employees, which influence relationships dynamics. Moreover, the person with the highest status usually speaks first and has more influence. (Deresky, 2014) While in Mexico, the authoritative hierarchical decision making process where lower level employees are not involved and it would be seen as inappropriate. Moreover, the employees have confidence in the credibility of the manager and therefore their decisions. (Commisceo Global, 2017)

Analysis of Japanese Business Culture Along with recent globalization, the business market is now diffused everywhere in the world. Consequently, mega-competition and international co-operation are promoted simultaneously in the field of business. Under this circumstance, learning and understanding the business culture each country has is important to succeed in global business. As business culture is indivisible from a country’s cultural uniqueness, American-style business is formed in the United States, and British-style business is adopted in England.

Japanese firms function by consistently showing high levels of informal communication, with group consensus seen as an emphatic component of corporate success. Nemawashi, which indicates an informal process of quietly laying down the foundation for a particular proposed project by talking to the concerned people, is widely practiced in the modern Japanese firms. Japanese management theory tracks these tendencies to Japanese culture that values collectivism over individualism, and the desire to limit individual responsibility. The organizational practices of democratic decision-making, combined with collective responsibility and minimal status differentiation are mentioned frequently in the literature (Hatvany & Pucik, 1981;

Cost leadership strategy: Producing products/services at the lowest cost in the industry. There are examples of companies that became cost leaders by incorporating IT into their management information systems. Dell Computer Online build to order system resulted in Dell becoming the lowest cost producer of computers and thus dealing a heavy blow to rivalry competitors.

is in sharp contrast with the Japanese collectivist nature of working in a group for the company as a whole. The individualistic nature of the Americans also leads to power conflicts among themselves. This is because, when additional responsibilities are given to them, they view it as an extension of their individual sovereignties (because of their thirst for personal achievements and accomplishments) and this leads to power conflicts in the case of overlapping sovereign areas. The Japanese being extremely high on the dimension of ³masculinity´, the job culture is often in contradiction to the American workers who lay equal emphasis to personal life as to professional, and their work life balance is imbalanced. The excessive importance given to dedication and devotion to work can create work stress for the Americans who put ³personal and family happiness first´. This is also evident in their recruitment philosophy: It is the ability, performance and attitude of an individual which is measured in an interview, rather than assigning a pseudo ± status to one owing to the prestige of his degree. This often leads to a communication gap between the Japanese and the Americans, which is literally evident in the meetings and discussions which happen at late hours when the Americans have retired for the day, among the Japanese in their language. Needless to say, this created apprehension in the minds of the Americans but the management tries to rectify the issue by

The organizations that endeavour to wind up the least cost makers in an industry can be alluded to as those taking after a low cost procedure. The organization with the least expenses would gain the most elevated benefits in the occasion when the contending items are basically undifferentiated, and offering at a standard business market cost. Organizations taking after this methodology place accentuation on cost diminishment in each action in the value chain. Note that an organization may be a cost pioneer however that does not inexorably infer that the organization 's items would have a low cost. In specific occurrences, the organization can for occasion charge a normal cost while applying the low cost leadership strategy and put the earnings made back into the business

The American society is “loosely-knit” in which they believe that people should look after themselves and their immediate family only and should not rely on the authorities for support (Moran et al, 2011, p.20). Americans expect their employees to be self-reliant and display initiative. However the Japanese culture shows many of the characteristics of a collectivistic society with a score of 46, Japanese are famous for their loyalty to their company and have a belief based more on the harmony of the group, for example in Japan, if one person is offended the whole group in turn is offended (Trompenaars and Turners, 1998).

Michael Porter’s contribution to marketing is that the term competitive advantage to the country is utilized in the strategic management structure of organisations (Fix). For an endeavour the competitive advantage can be distinguished as the parts that constitutes the prevalent execution of the organization in the mean of benefit in correlation with the contenders of a certain firm. In competitive advantage, the focus of Porter’s view are as per the following (Jurevicius, 2013).

Stereotype and the actual culture of Japanese employees and the success of these companies should be taken into consideration. Research has found that “Japanese employees have unusually strong identification with the company, but not necessarily high job satisfaction or strong commitment to the performance of specific job tasks” (Lincoln & Kalleberg, 1985, p.738). The Japanese workers have longer work hours, low wages and yet have higher loyalty of employees. It is speculated that Japanese Managers have contributed towards the success of the company and held to higher standards to ensure productivity from their employees. Japanese companies will look to and respect the senior workers, which demonstrates respect and appropriate organization behaviors. "As employees turn to their mentors for advice, they make fewer mistakes on the job, cutting losses to the employer" (Tingum, 2016). Overall, there are less satisfied employees than any other countries compared Japan and we need to

differences between collectivism affect the working relationships between the Japanese and the Americans. The practice

Generally, this two economies become more aware of each other, they compare themselves and more likely to adopt each other's practices, especially at the level of the industry in which they complete. For example, U.S investors are active in Japan, trying to persuade local executives to adopt U.S- style business practices, just as U.S policy makers have been urging the Japanese government to emulate American laws regarding trade, commerce and intellectual property. On the other hand, Japanese firms have made huge amount of investment in U.S and have considerable U.S based employees who adopt to Japanese-style practices. Over time, the U.S and Japanese firms

Porter’s generic strategies describe how a company attains competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three generic strategies-cost leadership, differentiation and