رشد اخلاق شناختی و مدیران تامین تجهیزات ژاپنی: مفاهیم برای بازاریابان صنعتی

With the importance of Japan to the world economy, and the attractiveness of Japanese corporations as buyers of U.S. industrial products, it is vital for industrial marketers to understand the ethical predispositions of Japanese purchasing executives. A ground-breaking sample of 222 purchasing executives from the largest Japanese corporations was obtained and assessed in terms of their cognitive moral development (CMD). The findings indicated: (1) the Japanese were more focused on the conventional level than on the postconventional level of CMD, (2) older executives were less concerned with group harmonization, and (3) upper management focused less on mutually satisfying outcomes and group harmonization than middle or lower levels. Benchmarking against previous research involving Chinese and American business executives, this study found that the Japanese approach moral judgment differently from either of the other populations. In particular, the Japanese were more focused on stage 3 (interpersonal concordance) than the other samples, while they were less focused (along with the Americans) than the Chinese for stage 4 (law and duty to the social order). These differences were also seen for stage 5a (social contract) with the Japanese and Chinese scoring lower than the Americans and for 5b (intuitive humanism) with the Chinese scoring higher than the Japanese or the Americans.

There is little doubt about the economic power of Japan (even in the wake of its recent economic difficulties) or its importance to the United States as a trading partner. In terms of 1995 Gross National Product, the United States and Japan ranked first and second in the world with totals of US$6,658,785.8 million and US$4,247,084.1 million, respectively [1]. At the micro level, this has led to a nearly “unquenchable” thirst for a better understanding of the mentality of the Japanese “business mind” [2]. Naturally, an important target market for U.S. industrial product marketers are the procurement executives of large Japanese companies. It seems logical that if, through this type of important basic research, American industrial marketers can better understand the “baseline” mentality of Japanese procurement professionals, they can ultimately increase their chances for a successful outcome. A recent focus of study pertaining to the “business mentality” of U.S. executives is Cognitive Moral Development or CMD [3]. However, while the study of CMD has a rich history in the Pacific Rim, only lately has it been directly applied in a business context [4]. A recent treatise on organizational ethics [5] stated “most experts agree that a person's stage of moral development and personal moral philosophy play a role in how values and actions are shaped in the workplace” (p. 39). Shenkar and Ronen [6] have suggested that national cultural ethical norms provide a basic framework for cross-cultural marketing negotiations, and Sheng, Chang and French [7] have posited that one important factor underlying this process is CMD. Theoretically, it is reasonable to expect individuals who come from different levels of moral development to exhibit different business behaviors, which may be fueled by substantially differing perceptions of the decision situations as well as the ethicality of these situations [4]. If one individual approaches the buyer–seller relationship focused on personal gain (potentially at the expense of the group), while another approaches the same decision focused on the good of the company (potentially at the expense of the individual), there is potential for conflict. Therefore, the study of CMD may have an important bearing on the mental predispositions or expectations the parties to any negotiation bring with them to the table. It is the purpose of this article to examine the Cognitive Moral Development of Japanese procurement executives from major Japanese corporations and benchmark the findings against samples from previous studies involving other cultures. In so doing, this study extends CMD research cross-culturally to an important aspect of the trading relationship between Japan and the United States, and contributes information toward the lack of knowledge regarding the mindset of Japanese executives.

As was stated earlier in the article, it is clear that there are some interesting results here. This sample of Japanese procurement executives were found to score lower on the P and D scores than did samples of Chinese and American executives, but it is important to note that this does not mean that the Japanese are less ethically oriented than their Chinese and American counterparts. It merely indicates that they are focused on different stages than the other samples. In terms of the conventional level of CMD the Japanese scored significantly higher on stage 3 than the Chinese and Americans. This was not the case for stage 4 where the Chinese scored higher than either the Japanese or the Americans, and there was no difference between the Japanese or the Americans. In terms of the stage 3 scores, it was expected that Asian cultures would score higher than the Americans given the collectivist orientations of the Japanese and Chinese. The well-being of the group is all important to the Japanese as opposed to individual selfagrandizement, so these results in comparison with the Americans are consistent. In fact, in Japan, it is difficult to separate the individual from the company; therefore, the “rules” as set by the company would take precedence over any individual desires (for a discussion of shikomu or “company morality” in Japan see DeMente [12]). One interesting note here is that Ford et al. [4] noted that stage 4 could be problematic since the real nature of institutionalized roles may need to be redefined as related to Kohlberg's stages. As mentioned previously, stage 3 focuses more on mutual benefits, while stage 4 focuses on rules. If the individual is truly a part of the company in Japan, then everything which is done is pursued from the perspective of the benefit that it can bring to the company, and therefore, to the individual as well. If the company benefits and harmony is maintained (the wa, see DeMente [12]), then all parties will benefit mutually from a Japanese perspective. In terms of the postconventional levels of CMD, the Japanese generally scored lower than the Americans. As was previously discussed, the DIT stage 5 scores are calculated in two parts, stage 5a reflecting the importance of social contract and stage 5b reflecting the importance of intuitive humanism [21]. The results here would seem to reflect a more contractual orientation for the Japanese than the Chinese. It may be that the “law or specific rules” as understood may be more important to the Japanese and Americans than for the Chinese. This may reflect the concern for Americans to societal or contractual laws and the concern for the Japanese to the “rules or laws” as defined by their company (and reinforced by society; see Ford and Honeycutt [13]). From the correlational analysis, it was interesting to note that older Japanese procurement executives scored lower on stage 3 scores. This suggests that as the individual gets older (which in Japan means that they have been with the company longer and have been promoted in the seniority hierarchy), there is less concern with the need to maintain group harmonization. This would seem to indicate (in keeping with the power distance in Japan as noted by Hofstede [14]) that lower level executives have greater pressure on them to maintain the harmony of the situation than their superiors. This is also reflected to a certain extent in the differences in scores across the three levels of management within the procurement ranks for this sample. There is an indication that the mental processes will actually change as the individual moves up in management. The focus apparently shifts to a lessening of importance for group benefits and mutually satisfying outcomes to a greater orientation toward personal benefits.