TEAMWORK BARRIERS IN JAPANESE HIGH-TECHNOLOGY FIRMS - THE SOCIOCULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING MANAGERS

Building and maintaining internal harmony is a fundamental concern for managers in many Japanese firms. Discussions of Japanese management p ractices often point to the intense socialization of new recruits, the rotation of employees through different functions, and the significan t role of seniority in determining salary levels and promotions. Consi dering this emphasis on harmony, can we reasonably assume that the ori entations of Japanese R&D and marketing managers do not differ in any ways that may pose significant barriers to teamwork between their depa rtments? X. Michael Song and Mark E. Parry test this assumption by exa mining the sociocultural differences between R&D and marketing manager s in Japanese high-technology firms. Using responses from both R&D and marketing managers in 223 firms, their study groups the respondents' employers as either low- or high-integration firms. They examine the s ociocultural differences between the R&D and marketing managers in the study along five dimensions: time orientation, bureaucratic orientati on professional orientation tolerance for ambiguity, and preferences f or high-risk, high-return projects. Contrary to expectations, the resp onses reveal several significant differences between the R&D and marke ting managers in this study. Compared to their colleagues in marketing , the Japanese R&D managers-in this study generally have a stronger pr eference for high-risk, high-return investments. The R&D managers in t he study, also have a longer rime orientation than the Japanese market ing managers. However, marketing managers from the high-integration fi rms in the study have a longer time orientation than their counterpart s in low-integration firms. Compared to the RED managers, Japanese mar keting managers in the high-integration firms studied have a greater t olerance for ambiguity. And relative to managers in low-integration fi rms, marketing and R&D managers in the high-integration firms in this study typically have a more bureaucratic organization.Perhaps most imp ortant a significant number of R&D managers in this study perceive the marketing managers in their firms to have higher organizational statu s. Specifically, responses from RED managers indicate that they percei ve their marketing colleagues to have higher salaries, more power, and brighter career prospects. Such perceptions may foster morale problem s among R&D professionals in these Japanese firms, and thus require ma nagement intervention to ensure that R&D performance does nor suffer.