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Lessons from the Japanese

In: Business and Management

Submitted By Gunner23GTG
Words 731
Pages 3
Lessons from the Japanese In the article Management Accounting (and Other) Lessons from the Japanese by Robert A. Howell and Michiharu Sakurai, the differences and similarities between management accounting in the United States and Japan are compared. There are 10 lessons in the article, which summarize the differences between the way companies in the two different countries operate. The article goes over the different viewpoints each country has, but also the similarities between the two. For instance, some companies in Japan have followed the U.S. lead in making management accounting a very integral part of the operations of their company, while some have become efficient enough for it to be an unnecessary function. Also, Japanese companies are very customer focused, as they understand that the customers are the reason they are successful or unsuccessful. American companies tend to focus more on the bottom line and pay attention to the profits to be made instead of the consumers they are providing products and services for. Overall, there are many differences between Japanese and American managerial accounting, but there are also some similarities. It mostly depends on the company the way they practice accounting but the culture surrounding them does have an effect.
While there are ten lessons gone over in the article, the lesson we chose to focus on lesson six, Business Planning and Budgeting. Our textbook says that a budget is a formal written statement of the plans of management for a specified future time period, expressed in financial terms. The article says that many companies in the U.S. go through a very long process and use a lot of strategy for the annual budget, but many Japanese companies revise their brief strategic plans often. According to the article, Japanese companies focus on a six-month budget, which is an integral part of the company. It is

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