High Trust, High Knowledge, High Stress — The Inherent Ambiguities of Japanese High Performance

Few western commentators now seriously doubt the industrial achievements of Japanese manufacturing industry. Not many, however, can find a common explanation for the era of high speed growth that elevated Japan into an economic super power in the late 1970's and 1980's. A status that hitherto had been regarded as the exclusive preserve of the Anglo Saxon Model of industrial capitalism. There are a number of possible reasons for this.