Management Integration through Software Applications: Japanese Manufacturing Firms in the UK Expert Control

Through the 1970’s to the present time the governance of the Japanese firm overseas has changed, moving towards a more international form of operation rather than operating as a peripheral organization based solidly on the Japanese headquarters office. Notwithstanding the evolution of their formal and informal management structures this research questions in detail the nature of computer software that may have been imported from Japan to the UK to control imported production systems and/or to control management data flows. These research questions stem from evidence noted in the 1980’s that imported Japanese production machines contained Japanese language instructions beneath their cover plates: so when maintenance was to take place, the UK engineers became baffled and then frustrated at their inability to translate the “instructions.” In the research reported here, we are essentially asking if the computer programs used to control this imported machinery carry embedded Japanese documentation which may prove difficult to interpret by software engineers in the UK? As an adjunct to this question, we note the origin of their control software (and other software used by the Japanese production subsidiaries in the UK), its modification in the UK (by whom), and the natural language used to communicate with the HQs in Japan. As an emergent finding, we report on the tensions arising at that time from the data-integration of the Japanese firms’ operations in Europe through the use of Enterprise Resource Planning software.