The economy of European countries is afflicted with a severe recession and a high unemployment. The top managements of companies in Europe have interests in Japanese economy and management which produce a huge balance of payment surplus of 130 billion dollars and a low unemployment rate of 2.5%. Although they are much interested in Japanese economy, Japanese counterparts are not interested in European economy. The Figaro's financial colums, which is one of the most influential paper in France, report articles about Japanese economy or management at least once every two days, however, Japanese papers don't say anything about French economy this four months according Japanese paper digests. I have lectured "Japanese Management Features" in a class of Science Po. MBA course from the middle of May in 1993, to the beginning of July, in Paris. After finishing the lecture, I interviewed top managements of European companies which are consisted of 1 British, 1 German and 4 French. <Unilever>; The fundamental and basic objective of the business is to satisfy shareholders, clients and employees. But a starting point is shareholder. Japanese market has been entirely opened except cultural barriers. <Deutsche Bank AG>; A communication technology revolution will be concentrated to building up a powerful PC-based network instead of on-line system with large computer. But Germany and Japan are far behind U. S. in developing software for the network building. It's necessary to learn Japanese language in a long term to enter Japanese market. There is no barrier in it except mental one. <PECHINEY>; The problem of PECHINEY's business is due to macro economic problems like Russian undisciplined exportation of aluminum, confusion of European currency and minus growth of consumption. Japanese has not interest in European current economic crisis. European external trade deficit is higher than American one. So Japanese should have more interest in a success of GATT than a bilateral negotiation between Japan and U. S. <JEAN PATOU>; The number of wealthy men who bought luxurious goods has decreased and the income of middle class has increased. Many cosmetic companies produced mass-consumption items, of which design is the same as the luxurious ones design, to make middle class persons to buy much more. But no difference between luxurious items and mass consumption ones gave rise to a serious decrease of sales volume. We envy Japanese people's will to work even if they can't buy his own home by their income. <Larny>; We diversify our business from the journals related with transportation and social affairs to ones related with pension, taxation and company law, and further change them from magazine to CD-Rom. We are also building up a data bank that aims personal use of the bar or owners of small companies. <JOUVE & ASSOCIE>; The most important ability of top management is an ability to think from other people's viewpoint. Self-made people who have not this ability may succeed in American society, but they can not do so in France. As the number of Grand Ecole educated people is very small, our head-hunting job becomes very profitable. The author has to thank Mr. Jacques P. de Portu, adviser of MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION, for kind interview arrangements.
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