"theory F"

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Take the case of engineer Hisato Gotoh. An 18-year veteran of Oki Denki Kogyo, one of Japan's largest electronics firms, Gotoh fell into a conflict with superiors over the need to develop new products for the growing market for custom-designed chips. Oki's corporate bureaucracy, accustomed to such large-scale commodity products as the standard memory chips, resisted. "The problem was the old guys on top," recalls the 38-year-old engineer. "To succeed in this market you have to move quickly. But Oki is big and too slow. They didn't change."

After prolonged arguments with his wife, who thought him insane to consider leaving a good job at an established firm, Gotoh finally quit Oki in 1984, and signed on with Keiske Yawata's LSI Logic. He is now very happy to be working in an American-style company. But Gotoh remains deeply concerned about the ability of Japan's large, Theory F-style electronics giants to compete.

"If they hope to be leaders in technology, they need some radical changes at the big companies," the blunt, powerfully built Gotoh believes. "They'll have to kill off everyone over 50 and make all the guys in their forties kacho, bucho, even vice-president I just fear it may be too late for them to change."

JAPANESE COMPANIES ARE UNLIKEly to implement Gotoh's radical proposal, but many analysts and corporate managers share his concerns about the ability of their nation's management culture to meet the economic challenges of the future. Increasingly, the focus of this concern is the new generation of college graduates, known widely as shirake sedai, or "reactionless generation," who seem to lack both the loyalty ethos of the over-40 generation and the nonconformity of the baby boomers. Aware of the difficulty of advancement and the problems of the fledgling venture businesses, these young Japanese have simply lowered their expectations and decided to play along with the system.

"The baby boomers were antiestablishment but also very creative," says Masayoshi Suzuki, director of the Socio-Economic Studies and Business Planning Department at Nomura Research Institute, Japan's leading think tank. "In this younger generation, you have no sense of rebellion to give them drive. They just want to work for the big companies and take it easy."

Even Japan's top corporate executives are disturbed about a generation that seems to have displaced fear with apathy. Faced with increasing competition from Korea, Taiwan, and other emerging Asian countries in mass-manufactured commodities, these managers realize that their companies cannot rely on the organizational skills associated with low-cost manufacturing, but must rely instead on the creative abilities of their employees. "This whole generation can execute, but they can't come up with new solutions and ideas," notes one disgusted Japanese electronics executive. "They are just like goldfish. They open their mouths and you feed them information."

Ironically, this "goldfish" generation has entered the job market with what would appear to be impressive credentials. More than one-third of these under-30 Japanese have gone on to college, and as a group they have outscored their American counterparts in such crucial fields as mathematics and science. Yet the very educational system that has made these youths such proficient test-takers also may have dampened their ability to think on their own. "We have been squeezing out the creativity from a whole generation," complains NRI's Suzuki about Japan's regimented educational system.

Not only has creativity suffered, but once these young people enter the company, they seem worn out by the brutal competition of schooling and examinations. Unlike earlier generations of Japanese, they share little enthusiasm for their work. A recent survey revealed that 15% to 20% of all workers under 40 lacked any real commitment toward their firms -- an attitude that may be commonplace in Western cultures but is shocking in Japan.

"All this loyalty stuff is basically garbage," believes 27-year-old Hideo Kikuchi, who recently quit a job with the prestigious Mitsui & Co. trading firm and joined Baring Far East Securities, a British investment firm. "As I see it, I am not interested in working for the company but for myself."

Although most younger workers lack Kikuchi's courage in changing jobs, his attitude toward work signifies a trend that disturbs many thoughtful Japanese executives. To them, the most crucial element in Japan's economic miracle has been the pride and selflessness of the Japanese employee, from the lowliest assembler to the most senior executive. Those winning qualities derive, as many have noted, from the age-old Japanese sense of loyalty. But they also derive from fear -- fear that has increasingly given way to frustration and resentment.

"I am proud of Japan's success, but why should I work hard if there's so little reward and no hope of promotion?" asks Mizuhisa Noguchi, a 28-year executive at Nichimen Corp., one of Japan's leading trading firms. "Maybe I'd like to go off and do something more interesting, but the opportunities are so small on the outside. We are stuck. The way things are, it seems like our dreams can never be realized."

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