Amoeba Management:Lessons From Japan’s Kyocera

Kyocera Corp.’s distinctive management system seeks to promote profitable growth by extreme decentralization — with thousands of small, customer-focused business units.

BY RALPH W. ADLER AND TOSHIRO HIROMOTO

A PERSISTENT CHALLENGE for companies as they become larger and more established is how to maintain the high level of dynamism and employee commitment that drove their success in the early days. Over the years, thoughtful managers and management theorists have formulated an array of approaches for dealing with the problem, including self-managing teams, self-organizing systems and division spinoffs — all designed to give managers and employees a more direct feeling of responsibility and accountability ...