The Japanese Miracle

The economy of Japan experienced many changes from the end of the 19th century till the mid of the 20th century. Through changes in the government and reforms, the values in the society changed as well. Although the government kept the own economy in isolation, the almost fully destroyed country revived on its own. This thesis will focus on key elements which contributed to the Japanese success stories and also describes the initial situations before a major change happened. Manufacturing and agriculture always relies on a high potential labour force, because they are responsible for the essential part of the growth. Economies only grow fast if a huge labour force is available, especially in tough times of reconstructing the country, people have to have motivation and patriotism. In the first main chapter the working class in the Post-war period will be described, where they came from and how they could be mobilized so fast. As already mentioned, people were very nationalistic at this time. The country was heavily destroyed during war times, specifically big parts of key industries. Although people were psychologically in a bad condition, they were the driving force of the rapid growth in the Post-war era. Moreover, special management techniques were developed in order to increase the competitiveness of Jap-anese goods in global markets. The system Kaizen involves all employees and, both pro-duction processes and the quality of manufactured goods, are being continuously devel-oped with the help of suggestions coming from the employees. The identification with the employer is very high compared to Western companies and everyone contributes to the success of the company. The country had faced many changes, specifically governments were changed radically, From the feudal system they changed to a more open-minded society, and tried to copy all positive business habits and technologies from Western countries. Particularly, Japanese copied ownership structures of Western