著者

ヨハネス ヒルシュマイヤー

出版者

経営史学会

雑誌

経営史学 (ISSN:03869113)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.5, no.3, pp.1-33, 1971-08-25 (Released:2010-11-18)

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It has by now become accepted theory that success or failure as well as the particular course of the industrialization process is strongly influenced by cultural values. But often enough the problem is simplified by stressing the need to replace “traditional” (native) values with “rational” (Western) ones, implying that only the Western type mentality is capable of becoming the carrier of the industrialization process. I take the position that within the constraints of economic and technical conditions, very different value patterns which are “traditional” to that country, can become successful bases for industrialization and modernization. This means of course that the same technological conditions can and do permit different economic behavior patterns. I establish this point by comparing both the values and the behavior patterns of Japan and the west in the pre-industrial and the industrial stage.As basic cultural values I take for the West the well-known Primacy of Reason and Supremacy of the Individual over the group. For Japan I take very opposite, the Primacy of Harmony and the Supremacy of the Group over the individual. I indicate how these divergent cultural values could develop and how they manifest themselves. The impact of these principles upon economic behavior prior to and during the seccessful industrialization periods is shown in some detail, using rather well-known material from economic and management history. Specifically, three aspects of economic behavior are studied, each of them logically necessary for industrialization : (a) The process of innovation and destruction ; (b) the process of competition ; (c) the goal-setting. I try to show that in each of these three aspects of economic change, there was a marked difference in approach between the West and Japan, and that this difference can clearly be reduced to the prevalence of the respective cultural values.While maintaining the strong persistence of traditional values during, and their positive contribution for the success of the industrialization process, I also agree that technology itself is constantly, albeit gradually, reshaping those values in both the West and Japan, and that the two are moving gradually closer together.