In Japan's front offices, a new fusion of East and West

TOKYO: Now that Japan is emerging from years of sluggish growth, its corporations appear to have produced something few executives or analysts expected even a few years ago: a management method that incorporates lessons from American companies while preserving the practices that once made Japanese companies famous.Until very recently, it was widely expected that recession and the mounting pressures of global competition would force corporate Japan to surrender traditions like loyalty to employees and suppliers and responsibility to shareholders. Prominent analysts in the Tokyo offices of firms like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch were among the most enthusiastic exponents of this view.But a funny thing happened on the way to the Japanese recovery. What was almost universally written off as Japan's "lost decade" has left this nation's leading companies stunningly competitive.........