Abstract

California, where many Japanese firms operate in the retail service sector, provides a laboratory to examine the extent to which the high levels of personal service that are routinely achieved in Japan have been exported to the United States. The eight Japanese firms examined in this study have not implemented the Japanese approach to service in the U.S. because they believe that the nature of the workforce and environment make its implementation infeasible and because they do not believe it to be cost effective. Rather, the Japanese compete very much like U.S. firms with respect to personal service.