What article were you reading? This article isn't idealizing Japanese companies, and specifically discusses the drawbacks of the Japanese approach, including zombie companies.
The article's thesis statement isn't "the Japanese approach is better," but that business practices like these bundle together, that they're very difficult to change, and that each bundle has different advantages and disadvantages.
Ironically, you've proved a deeper point about how amusing HN is: we all tend to project our fantasies onto the articles we're discussing, even if we didn't fully read or understand the article.
I did read it, but my impression remains the same. While the article does contain critiques of the Japanese system, as an East Asian, I feel it completely misses the actual underlying dynamics.
I know the author isn't trying to paint Japan as a utopia. The reason I call it 'romanticized' is because the author claims Japan's success in precision parts is driven by 'horizontal' and 'collaborative' practices. That just isn't true.[1]
In reality, this system is largely sustained by the ruthless squeezing of subcontractors (for the record, I am Korean, but I actually like Japan), which is a massive social issue there. It’s very difficult for me to understand how anyone could view this structural dynamic as collaborative or horizontal.
If the author had concluded that their success in these niches stems from being an extremely vertical society where defying your superiors is simply not an option, I would have fully agreed. That aligns exactly with what I have experienced firsthand.
>"The andon method is really the J-mode in miniature. Information flows laterally, authority to act is widely distributed, and the people closest to the problems are the ones who fix it."
Does your definition of a 'horizotal culture' actually mean forcing people to work overtime just to hit deadlines? Are you sure you haven't completely confused 'horizotally' with 'top-down'
P.S. The link I provided is an official directive from the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) explicitly warning large corporations to stop ruthlessly suppressing their subcontractors' labor costs.
The “Just-in-Time System” amounts to the exploitation of subcontractors. As a Japanese citizen, I am well aware of the reality of the Japanese economy. While server resources can be scaled up or down with a simple command, scaling physical factory resources is not so easy. Inevitably, this leads to suppressed wages for employees. Furthermore, while labor unions exist within large corporations known as “keiretsu,” they do not exist in subcontracting firms. There are laws in place to protect subcontractors, but in practice, they do not function (because if a subcontractor were to legally sue a major corporation, they would lose their business).
This country’s economy is built on the sacrifice of others.
Walmart and Amazon ruthlessly squeeze their suppliers. They achieve low prices on some things and try to corner the market on others (and then raise prices). What I don't see them achieving (to the contrary, I see them failing spectacularly at) is the quality control that some Japanese companies excel at.
So there has to be something more to it than that.
When U.S. giants like Walmart or Amazon squeeze their suppliers, the natural consequence is cost-cutting and a drop in quality control. But for regional companies in Japan and Korea, regional mobility is incredibly difficult. In Japan, for instance, even politics is often "hereditary," and there is a strong overarching tendency for people and businesses to stay rooted in one specific region (while many do migrate to Tokyo, a vast number of people simply do not have that choice).
In the highly fluid U.S. corporate ecosystem, mobility is always an option. If a supplier loses a contract with Walmart, they can still pivot to another massive retailer, even if it's not quite as large.
Japan and Korea, however, have small landmasses, and the reputational risk is absolute. If a company's reputation is damaged by a single failure or a lost contract, their next job simply vanishes. Because of this existential threat, they fundamentally cannot compromise on quality. Imagine what happens to a small supplier in Japan if they are cut off by a mega-retailer like Aeon Mall. There is no backup giant waiting to take them. They are finished.
So, while geographical and structural differences dictate this extreme pursuit of quality, framing it as a "horizontal culture" is completely wrong. As an East Asian, I can confidently say that "horizontal culture" is the single most mismatched term you could possibly use to describe East Asia
If you are from the West, navigating East Asian culture can be exceptionally grueling. At a fundamental level, our societies tend to be inherently exclusive toward different races.
Do you have a good book, article(s) or podcast to recommend on this topic (business culture in East Asia, or a specific country), in English & approachable by Westerners, while not giving just a cartoon overview of the issues?
The focus of the article is on why Japanese corporations excel at so many different areas. Are you saying that all the factors it mentions, like employees being trained as generalists, life-time and so on, are completely irrelevant? or are you saying they are important but some other essential factors were left out?
> In reality, this system is largely sustained by the ruthless squeezing of subcontractors (for the record, I am Korean, but I actually like Japan), which is a massive social issue there. It’s very difficult for me to understand how anyone could view this structural dynamic as collaborative or horizontal.
This is the picture painted for me by the article. Vertical integration eliminates subcontractors. Horizontal integration squeezes them.
> If the author had concluded that their success in these niches stems from being an extremely vertical society where defying your superiors is simply not an option, I would have fully agreed. That aligns exactly with what I have experienced firsthand.
Same story here. When switching jobs is made difficult, the incentive is not to make waves.
> Does your definition of a 'horizotal culture' actually mean forcing people to work overtime just to hit deadlines?
This is a two part question, the system and the idolise part aren't related.
You are ignoring a lot of quality Japanese product have been producing for more than 50 years, which answer partly why idolise Japan question. But the so called squeezing of subcontractors is true as of any other American companies if not worldwide and yet they failed ( or mostly failed ) to achieve similar standing to Japanese counterparts in terms of quality.
Exactly, I was confused too. The authors clearly mention what the parent comment talks about, albeit towards the end of the article, that the 'J' bundle meant that these firms were not set up for success once they 'caught up' and were required to innovate not just process but from the ground up to envision new categories (e.g. iPhone).
Thank you, I was confused reading the comment above, because the article pretty clearly laid out the benefits and drawbacks of the system. I didn't see any idealizing.
You argued that this article (by David Oks) is an example of "how Westerners idealize Japan." I argued that this article does not idealize Japan, and that, if you interpreted Oks' article that way, then you didn't understand the article.
I didn't say that Japanese business culture is more "horizontal" than Western business culture, or that Japanese business culture is better in any particular way. I didn't even say that the article is right or wrong about anything.
All I did was to restate the thesis statement of the article, to clarify what the article actually says.
I don't harbor any particular affinity for Japan, or Japanese business culture. I know very little about it. I'm not an authority to speak on it, and I didn't.
You assumed what I believe without understanding what I wrote. You did exactly the same thing to me that you did to David Oks.
There's almost no way these guys (low pass filter)can see the water they have been breathing since they were born unless they've had first hand experience that wakes them up (high pass filter)
Add to that (Western) (indie?) game-makers and hafu are both predominantly right-wing.. far-right, if you take a global perspective. Polite to the point of being offensive, though. :) Perhaps there are very very few opportunities in which to feel a loss of control in real life, or trained since infancy
That said, there's seems to be still a lot of useful info in article that bears "bookmarking"..
> In Japan, mobility is fundamentally expensive, and relocating to a different region is much harder than outsiders realize.
Unless said mobility is paid for by the company.
As part of the job rotation mentioned in the article, larger Japanese companies are also notorious for reassigning job locations, often at short notice and with zero care for family dynamics. Hence the tanshin-fu'nin phenomenon, where the husband is sent off to work at some factory or regional branch in the sticks for years while the wife brings up the kids elsewhere.
You seem to understand this deeply, perhaps even better than I do. When I worked in Japan, experiencing the corporate culture firsthand was much harder than I had anticipated. They even provided a translator for my boss and me during our business trip, but it was still incredibly tough. I do remember that, at the time, they were conducting suicide prevention training for employees in the wake of the Toyota new-hire suicide incident.
Anyway, you clearly know a lot about Japan, and I apologize if it came across as me just badmouthing the country. My original intent was simply to point out how drastically different things look from an East Asian perspective compared to a Western one. I didn't mean to keep painting Japan in a negative light—every system obviously has its pros and cons. I actually have fond memories of the unique, close-knit, family-like atmosphere that Japanese companies have
How does the "concentration" of gamedev jobs look like ? In US and I think in most of EU countries that have noticeable gamedev it is usually concentrated in very few cities, so changing job does not necessarily consist a move. But other industries similarly usually have a niche and sometimes whole towns that rose around it.
I think main difference is that there is very little tradition of company thinking they own something to the workers, and (I think) far more of companies just buying out their competition and then gutting any tradition and institutional knowledge within
> (Moving in Japan involves massive upfront rental fees like shikikin (deposit) and reikin (key money), making the physical act of relocating extremely prohibitive.)
I don't think that part is all that different? While we don't have "key money" it's still a big deal to take your life and move it somewhere else
The article's thesis statement isn't "the Japanese approach is better," but that business practices like these bundle together, that they're very difficult to change, and that each bundle has different advantages and disadvantages.
Ironically, you've proved a deeper point about how amusing HN is: we all tend to project our fantasies onto the articles we're discussing, even if we didn't fully read or understand the article.