2013 Volume 12 Issue 5 Pages 237-250
Japanese companies often criticize themselves on their own “nurumayu [lukewarm] nature.” Takahashi (1989) states that, in reality, however, the lukewarm feeling felt by organization members can be explained through the effective temperature hypothesis. The organization's propensity to change as a system is measured as system temperature, while the member's propensity to change as an organization person is measured as body temperature. The lukewarm feeling that the member feels can be explained using effective temperature, which is defined as the system temperature minus the body temperature. The effective temperature hypothesis was tested using the JPC Survey conducted every year from 1990 to 2000, where N = 10,356. The results show the coefficient of determination of 0.9886 with a surprisingly neat straight line, demonstrating a direct relationship wherein the lukewarm feeling ratio drops as the effective temperature rises. This paper also shows the possibility that the lukewarm feeling and effective temperature are leading indicators of the economic recession.
