The Spirit of Productivity: Workplace Discourse on Culture and Economics in Japan

Japan's economic success in the contemporary world has elicited considerable respect on the one hand and equally great suspicion and even a certain mystique on the other. Western explanations of this enviable competitiveness inevitably address the potential influence of Japanese culture on Japanese productivity. In particular, there is great interest in the Japanese work ethic, management style, and the elusive motivation of the Japanese worker. Unfortunately, the result of much of the effort to understand Japanese workers and workplaces is a picture with too little breadth or depth. The temptation is to seek a simple answer rather than to understand ongoing Japanese debates and dilemmas. Because "we" want to understand "them," "they" become for us a single, unified group with a single, unified way of thinking. It is not possible to appreciate either Japanese economic success or the role of culture in that success without also appreciating the heterogeneity within Japanese workplaces and the dilemmas of contemporary consciousness for Japanese workers. Interestingly enough, the meaning of work in Japanese workplaces themselves very often entails some concept of a national or cultural iden-