Japanese Management: What about the "Hard" Skills?

Many writers on Japanese management emphasize the importance of "soft" skill, staff, style, and superordinate goal factors in managing successful organizations.It is argued here that Japanese firms face turbulent environments, making the "hard" factors of strategy, structure, and systems necessary for success.The idea of organizational learning is used to explain how Japanese firms' hard skills have equalled and sometimes surpassed those of Western firms, despite the limited professional education of Japanese managers.