Title: The Tokyo chronicles
First published: 1994
Description: "The Tokyo Chronicles is a capitivating inside look revealing the secrets of Japan's success and identifying the critical factors that are essential to competing or cooperating with Japanese business enterprises. Written in a series of short stories, The Chronicles represent the highlights of Al Sieg's experiences living, working, and competing in Japan. Sieg ran Eastman Kodak's operations in Japan and was charged with making a serious incursion into the home "turf" of its arch rival, Fuji Film. After seven years of difficult lessons and remarkable progress, Kodak's business had grown by more than 600 percent and was firmly established in the Japanese market." "Sieg's personal stories reveal a side of Japan that is not often seen by Americans and will help managers to truly understand the real strengths and inherent weaknesses of Japanese companies and their economic system.^

The Chronicles also provide a unique perspective that portrays the first-person challenges of living with the interconnections between everyday Japanese life and business." "From his clashes with MITI to the forays into acquiring Japanese companies, Sieg takes the reader on a visual tour of Japan and its intricate forms of business and bureaucracy. His Chronicles include powerful, penetrating stories on understanding the Japanese work ethic, their national passion for superlatives, the social life of a company man, their unique form of trickle-down management, Japanese real-time market research, the importance of maintaining harmony in Japanese society and how the Japanese gain the upper hand in business negotiations." "Sieg shares many of his personal experiences from learning, (painfully), the importance of golf in cementing relationships to the vital role of money in establishing "connections" in Japan.^

Personal lessons, such as adopting the expected executive role of a "harmonizer" and the necessity of making high-profile apologies, are recounted with humor and wit." "In today's context of pending trade wars, threats of embargos, the dollar-yen imbalance, and Japan's political uncertainties, The Tokyo Chronicles offer a much-needed, balanced perspective. Despite the current differences between the United States and Japan, it's clear that the success of both nations is inextricably intertwined."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Business etiquette, Japanese National characteristics, National characteristics, Japanese, Social life and customs, Japan, economic conditions, Japan, social conditions
Places: Japan
Time periods: 1945-
LC classification: HF5389 .S56 1994