Introduction Americanization and Its Limits Reworking US Technology and Management in Postwar Europe and Japan

1、introduction: americanization and its limits: reworking us technology and management in postwar europe and japan*jonathan zeitlinforthcoming in jonathan zeitlin and gary herrigel (eds.), americanization and its limits: reworking us technology and management in postwar europe and japan (oxford univer

2、sity press, 2000)a conspicuous feature of the development of the modern world economy has been the emergence of new models of productive efficiency and their attempted diffusion across national boundaries. britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the united states from the late

3、 nineteenth century through the 1960s, and once again perhaps in the 1990s; japan in the 1970s and 80s: each of these countries generated innovations in technology and business organization which were widely believed to define a transnational standard of productive efficiency. in each case, foreign

4、observers flocked to the rising industrial power of the day to determine the secrets of its success, while business people and government officials sought through a variety of means to transplant the new methods into their own domestic soil. in each case, moreover, such experiments touched off far-r

5、eaching debates about the essential features of the new production paradigm; its economic, social, cultural, institutional, and political preconditions; and its transferability across national borders.1 although responses have varied widely across firms, countries, and periods and any definitive jud

6、gement would be premature in the most recent cases historical experience suggests that wholesale imitation of foreign best practice has typically proved less common than piecemeal borrowing and selective adaptation to suit the divergent requirements of local economic and institutional circumstances.

7、 often, too, such incremental modifications of the internationally dominant model have given rise to innovative hybrids which became sources of competitive advantage in their own right as in the case of japanese manufacturers postwar transformation of us mass-production techniques. 2 in theory as in

8、 history, moreover, there are strong grounds for believing that any successful imitation of foreign organizational patterns requires innovation, and that the process of transfer and adaptation of a productive model from 2a parent context to another site will always lead to the hybridization of the l

9、ogic and elements of the productive organization because of inevitable differences between the original and new environments. modification and hybridization of imported technology and management methods, on this view, should not be understood as a negative expression of domestic resistance to the tr

10、ansfer process, nor even as a regrettable if perhaps necessary consequence of compromises in adapting a foreign best practice model to fit local constraints, but rather as a positive opportunity for decentralized innovation and learning by self-reflective actors. 3this book focuses on the largest an

11、d to date most significant example of this global phenomenon: that of americanization after the second world war. for a central problem confronting western european countries and japan alike was how far their domestic industries should be reshaped in the image of the united states, unquestionably th

12、e dominant economic and military power of the postwar world. to contemporaries on both sides of the atlantic and pacific, the american model meant above all mass production the high-volume manufacture of standardized goods using special-purpose machinery and predominantly unskilled labour together w

13、ith the host of systematic management techniques, organizational structures, and research and marketing services developed for its efficient administration and effective exploitation. beyond the intrinsic appeal of such methods to nations aspiring to emulate american productivity and abundance, us p

14、olicy makers actively sought to promote their diffusion through the technical assistance programs and counterpart funds associated with the marshall plan in europe and on a more modest scale with the military occupation and procurement authorities in japan. at a deeper level, finally, us officials a

15、nd business leaders aimed to recast european and japanese patterns of corporate organization and competitive order through assertive support for antitrust, decartellization, and deconcentration policies, together with international market integration and trade liberalization. 4much of the historical

16、 literature on postwar americanization has tended to assume without extensive supporting evidence that this process proceeded relatively smoothly and rapidly, at least in its narrowly economic and technological dimensions. the real barriers to americanization, from this perspective, lay rather in th

17、e social, cultural, institutional, and political spheres, where established elites and popular classes each proved reluctant, to varying degrees and for different reasons, to embrace transatlantic models of labour-management 3relations, mass consumption, and macroeconomic management. western europe,

18、 as one influential formulation puts it, was only half-americanized during the postwar reconstruction period; but productive organization and techniques in such accounts are squarely allocated to the americanized half. 5 even where the limits of industrial americanization are recognized, as in recen

19、t studies of postwar britain, the persistence of pre-fordist production methods is typically taken as a sign of backwardness and complacency, an avatar of and contributory factor in the subsequent decline of domestic manufacturing. 6 only in the japanese case has there been much explicit discussion

20、of possible efficiency gains obtained by modifying the american model to suit local circumstances; and even there, the reconstruction of the postwar workplace is often nonetheless assimilated to the broader triumph of a transnational politics of productivity exported from the united states. 7 yet in

21、 an era when american manufacturers have themselves struggled to respond to the challenges of new competitive strategies based on greater product diversity and productive flexibility, there can be little justification for considering mass production and systematic management as they were practiced i

22、n the united states during the 1940s and 50s as a universal model of industrial efficiency which other nations failed to embrace at their peril.8based on a richly detailed set of empirical studies by an international group of leading scholars, this book seeks to develop a new comparative analysis of

23、 industrial americanization in postwar europe and japan aimed at overcoming the conceptual limitations of the existing literature. first, the essays in this volume closely examine european and japanese responses to postwar efforts at promoting the transfer and diffusion of us management methods and

24、manufacturing practice. paying particular attention to issues of impact and implementation at the level of individual sectors and firms, the authors emphasize the autonomous and creative role of local actors in the reception both positive and negative of american techniques and methods, above and be

25、yond the influence of us government agencies, marshall plan institutions, or national productivity councils. second, the contributors look carefully not only at what the historical actors did, but also at why they did it: at the processes of reflection and debate, both public and private, which unde

26、rlay their strategies and choices. historical actors, like contemporary historians, disagreed sharply about the possibilities and limitations of postwar americanization in different national and sectoral contexts, while the ensuing debates, as these essays demonstrate, often exercised a decisive inf

27、luence on the decisions taken, and thus on the 4trajectory of economic development in the broadest sense. contemporary objections to the american model, as we shall see, were not purely socio-cultural, nor can they easily be dismissed as blinkered conservatism even in hindsight: on the contrary, the

28、ir economic and technological reservations foreshadowed much of the subsequent critique of us manufacturing practice in the face of the japanese challenge. third, the contributors treat established market and industrial structures not simply as objective parameters for entrepreneurial decisionmaking

29、, but rather as contested terrains whose contours were shaped by rival visions both foreign and domestic of the bases for competitive order, technical efficiency, and democratic stability in a modern economy. fourth, rather than posing the problem in terms of wholesale acceptance or rejection of the

30、 american model, the essays in this volume underscore instead the importance of selective adaptation to fit the demands of domestic markets and institutions, giving rise to a multiplicity of hybrid forms of productive organization, some of which would eventually develop into significant innovations

31、in their own right. such creative modifications of us practice, as the authors show, could be observed not only among outspoken critics of americanization, but also paradoxically among many of its most ardent european and japanese admirers. for all these reasons, finally, this book argues for a shif

32、t in analytical perspective from the transfer and diffusion of us technology and management to their active reworking in postwar europe and japan, while the contributors prefer in the end to speak not so much of americanization, or even of its limits, but rather of american engagements, with all its

33、 multiple, ambivalent, and actively charged connotations.the balance of this introductory chapter is divided into three main sections. the first section re-examines the historiography of postwar americanization, highlighting the theoretical assumptions underlying contending perspectives in order to

34、bring out the distinctive features of the conceptual approach developed in this book. only by substantially modifying or discarding altogether a series of widely-held assumptions about the nature and transferability of productive models, it argues, can the pervasive evidence of selective adaptation

35、and innovative modification of us techniques and methods uncovered by the studies in this volume be convincingly accommodated. the second section draws together the empirical findings of the individual chapters to sketch out a complex, multi-levelled comparative analysis of similarities and variatio

36、ns in postwar european and japanese engagements with the american model across firms, sectors, and national economies, stressing the creativity and reflexivity of local actors 5together with the resulting proliferation of hybrid forms and practices. the third and final section of the chapter conside

37、rs the implications of the books interpretation of postwar americanization for current debates on the transfer and diffusion of foreign productive models across national borders, underlining the historical grounds for skepticism about the likelihood and desirability of international convergence arou

38、nd any single best practice model of economic and technological efficiency, whether japanese or anglo-american.i. postwar americanization: contending perspectives and theoretical assumptionsfew historiographical propositions are more deeply entrenched than the claim that the transfer of us technolog

39、y and managerial know-how lay at the heart of the extraordinary economic growth experienced by western europe and japan during the golden age of the long postwar boom. this view, which originated in the self-presentation of the marshall plan institutions and their contemporary supporters, has been r

40、einvigorated over the past decade and a half by the burgeoning economic literature on international catch-up and convergence of productivity. the spread of best practice american technologies and systems of work organization throughout western europe and japan, write andrew glyn, alan hughes, alain

41、lipietz, and ajit singh in a widely-cited essay on the rise and fall of the golden age, was reflected at the macroeconomic level in the slow process of “catch-up” of average productivity levels.common to all countries were productivity missions sent to the us to bring back the message as to how amer

42、ican prosperity could be emulated. high postwar growth, nicholas crafts and gianni toniolo likewise observe in an overview of current historical-economic research, was made possible by the gains deriving from the transfer of the (taylorist) mass production technology in a receptive (socially capable

43、) environment stabilized by a strong american leadership. 9many postwar historians carry this interpretation further in stressing not only the transfer of american production techniques and management methods to western europe and japan, but also the realignment of economic structures, institutions,

44、 and practices in the latter countries with those of the united states. thus as john killick contends in a recent synthetic text on the united states and european reconstruction:6since 1945, the european economy has developed many characteristically american features. for instance, huge increases in

45、 intra-european trade, encouraged by improved transport and ec legislation, have produced large-scale industrial restructuring and many firms now operate throughout europe. these new corporations are organised more like american oligopolies than traditional british or german firms: their managers us

46、e american methods, often learned in american-style management schools; their products and services are advertised in american-style media and are marketed in american-type stores. this market is kept closer to full employment than in the 1930s by the use of relatively active and coordinated fiscal

47、and monetary policies which were developed, in key respects, in the usa. the market is policed by european adaptations of american anti-trust legislation and regulatory agencies. 10much writing in this vein similarly emphasizes the more or less transformative influence on west european and japanese

48、society resulting from the postwar diffusion of american models of mass consumption, commercialized culture, industrial relations, and the displacement of distributive conflict by an ideological consensus around the pursuit of economic growth what charles maier has influentially termed the politics

49、of productivity. radio, television, advertising, and above all hollywood cinema, according to this view, worked alongside marshall plan propaganda to diffuse seductive images of the american way of life, driving the demand side of the economic and social transformation, speeding and channelling the

50、changes in mentality and behaviour towards an americanized era of high mass consumption. 11for other postwar historians, however, the european and japanese adoption of us production techniques and management methods was not matched, at least in the short and medium term, by a parallel embrace of the

51、 social, cultural, institutional, and political components of the american model. business and political elites in many countries, on this view, long remained highly skeptical of, if not actively hostile to, the new deal-inspired dimensions of the marshall plan program such as high wages, domestic m

52、ass consumption, cooperative union-management relations, public welfare expenditure, decartellization, and keynesian macroeconomic management, as well to us proposals for international market integration and the liberalization of trade and payments. important and in some cases dominant sections of t

53、he labor movement likewise rejected the us-sponsored vision of a productivity partnership between depoliticized unions and progressive managements based on plant-level contractual bargaining. for all these reasons, us diplomatic historian michael hogan concludes, borrowing a phrase from pier paolo d

54、attores analysis of italy, in the endwestern europe was only “half-7americanized”; whereas the marshall plan had aimed to remake europe in an american modeamerica was made the european way a judgement which could readily be extended with appropriate modifications to the japanese case. 12in response

55、to the conflicting evidence thrown up by the opposed positions in this debate, some recent accounts of postwar americanization accordingly emphasize the coexistence of trends towards international convergence of productive systems resulting from the attempted diffusion of the us model with the conti

56、nuing persistence of national differences. postwar americanization, on this view, involved not only a transfer of us production techniques and management methods to western europe and japan, but also a partial transformation of economic structures, institutions, and socio-cultural practices. the ext

57、ent and forms of this latter transformation, however, varied across countries depending on pre-existing features of their domestic environment, together with the opportunities these created for local resistance to the adoption of the american model. thus as david ellwood writes in his broad syntheti

58、c text rebuilding europe: in historical terms americanisation appears as a particularly distinctive form of modernisation, superimposed with great political, economic and cultural force on each european countrys own variant.every nation arrived at its own synthesis of production and consumption, of

59、collective and individual spending, of traditional ways and new practices directed to growth. 13or as marie-laure djelic puts it more theoretically in her comparative sociological study exporting the american model: the american model was not accepted nor adopted to the same extent in all western eu

60、ropean economies. national peculiarities remained and they were more or less significant in each case. indeed, for each country, the transfer process was embedded in different economic, political, cultural, and institutional environments. in turn, those national differences had an impact not only on