HYPERRATIONALITY - HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS AND CONTEMPORARY OUTCOMES WITHIN JAPANESE MANUFACTURING

After World War II, the Japanese began to rebuild industrially by impo rting American formally rational technologies and fusing them with ind igenous ones. Most importantly, they integrated formal rationality wit h practical, theoretical, and substantive rationalities to produce a ' 'hyperrational'' system. The synergy between these four types of ratio nality produced a level of rationality exceeding that found in formall y rational American industry. It is argued that the growth in Japanese manufacturing can be traced to hyperrationality. In this paper, the e xistence of hyperrationality, its implications for the Japanese manufa cturing sector, and possible avenues for future sociological research are demonstrated.