AUTHORITY IN THE JAPANESE ORGANIZATION

Abstract

The exercise of power and the process of decision-making in the Japanese group are characterized by three features, the sum of which constitutes a unique pattern of organizational behavior: the seepage of authority, the recession of decision, and the proliferation of faction. Four theories of Japanese modal psychology have been advanced to explain the persistence of this pattern over time. These are the authoritarian, the dependent, and two mixed hypotheses: one of which sees authoritarian and dependent patterns as differing individual adaptations to the socialization process; and one, of which sees authoritarianism and dependency as associated with different cultural styles conditioned by social class. The study originally hypothesized that the mixed social class theory was correct. The hypothesis is tested by the use of interviews and projective tests with a sample of middle-level administrators in large Japanese bureaucratic organizations, both public and private. Four central psychological concerns are isolated and described in the sample: the dilemmas of inclusion exclusion, harmony dissension, communication and the failure to communicate, and trust mistrust. These concerns are analyzed in their relation to the phenomena of seepage of authority, recession of decision, and proliferation of faction. It is concluded that the initial hypothesis was untenable, and that the psycho-organizational equilibrium under study is best explained by the theory that Japanese modal personality includes both authoritarian. And dependent trends, which are conditioned, not by class, but by individual modes of adaptation. It is further shown that, although the origins of Japanese authoritarianism are similar to those postulated in theory, the content differs in accordance with cultural variations. The authoritarian strand in Japanese modal personality and culture is found ’to be less significant in explaining organizational behavior than the alternate pattern of affiliative dependency.