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MATSUSHITA’S AND JAPAN’S CHANGING CULTURE

Japan has come a long way since the horrible memory of defeat ‘World War II’. The post war struggle generation clung to their fifth century culture and ideas of rebuilding Japan. In less than sixty years Japan rose again to one of the world’s powerful nations largely from providing electrical/electronic products to most of the globes countries.

The type of culture that facilitated Japan to hold onto its people and acquired knowledge and become consistently stronger each year was that of Confucian beliefs. Confucian values are essentially derived from three ingredients which are high moral conduct and loyalty to others, reciprocal obligations to show appreciation of network involvement, and honesty in dealing with others. Confucians are not interested in the supreme being or afterlife like that of Hindu or Buddhism, Confucius’s are more concerned with what is happening now and how they interact with others in the course of their life. Loyalty to a superior in Confucian society was long considered a sacred duty, a life long obligation. This loyalty is not blind, like the subordinates loyalty to the superior similarly the superior is required to reciprocate the showing of loyalty to the subordinate in some way of relevance to the subordinate. If the superior fails to reciprocate the favours then the superior will most definitely suffer lost of moral standing in the community and networks which they might be involved with.

This ‘collective programming of the mind’ which distinguishes the Confucius’s from other cultures, has made Japan what it has become today. Japan is a successful country with many achievements, a proud country which can retain knowledge moving forward. Japan’s road to success experience some set backs which required deep culture change to Confucian values. For if these changes were not made failure in the global arena was eminent.

The primary triggers of...