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Learning from Honda

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  • Andrew Mair

Abstract

The case of the Honda Motor Company has been cited frequently in the strategic management literature. A review reveals that Honda's strategy has been used to illustrate and support apparently contradictory positions on a series of conceptual dichotomies, namely analytical planning versus learning, market positioning versus resource‐based and, within the last of these, core competencies versus core capabilities. A critical analysis of this literature reveals empirical inaccuracies and a focus on Honda's strategic successes to the neglect of its failures. More significantly, explanations and general strategy implications are couched in terms of reductionist one‐sided theories, a tendency which is only deepened when strategy thinkers debate ‘the meaning of Honda’. This theoretical approach is particularly ill suited to Honda, an important strategic capability of which appears to be precisely the reconciliation of dichotomous management concepts. Western strategy thinkers have therefore missed the opportunity to develop a more appropriate and productive paradigm for learning from Honda.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Mair, 1999. "Learning from Honda," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 25-44, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:36:y:1999:i:1:p:25-44
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-6486.00124
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    Cited by:

    1. Pina e Cunha, Miguel & Rego, Arménio & Clegg, Stewart & Lindsay, Greg, 2015. "The dialectics of serendipity," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 9-18.
    2. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & John Heilbron, 2016. "Decision-Making by Precedent and the Founding of American Honda (1948 - 1974)," Harvard Business School Working Papers 17-016, Harvard Business School.
    3. Bernardo Batiz-Lazo & Gustavo A. Del Angel, 2016. "The Dawn of the Plastic Jungle: The Introduction of the Credit Card in Europe and North America, 1950-1975," Economics Working Papers 16107, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    4. Miguel Pina e Cunha & Joao Vieira da Cunha & Carlos Cabral Cardoso, 2000. "Looking for complication: The case of management education," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp394, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.

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