2000 Volume 8 Issue 1-2 Pages 33-50
Recently, one of the considerations for winning market competition is the enlargement of intellectual assets and their effective control. Intellectual assets are the set of intangible assets such as skills, relationships, knowledges and information, which are created by the company itself. Most of the assets are intangible ones which are not shown in the financial statement. Intellectual assets are generally composed of customer assets, structual assets and human assets. These are more useful than tangible assets to increase profit. Because intellectual assets are various, the total valuation by many various measures is better than by one financial measure.
Another consideration is to fuse top-down type management with empowerment type management properly. The former is well fitted in coping with the structual changes of a company such as the extension and the reduction of markets and technological innovations; the latter is well fitted in increasing the adaptability and the flexibility in responding to customers' needs sensitively. Recently, the nonfinancial measures are useful in empowerment type management have been especially emphasized; however, I think total management by using nonfinancial measures and financial measures is important in both cases.
We have had the management method by a balanced scorecard to excute total management effectively in consideration of these points; however, I will consider TP (total productivity) management, which is similar to that method, and is probably more advanced. than that. TP management was created in Japan. TP management is useful as a way of focusing all employees in a common direction by using matrix thinking and a matrix system when considering various goals and policies. I will point out that the method is also useful in empowerment type management connected with company-wide goals by deploying their goals into individual employee' goals. Moreover, I will point out that the problems of budgetary control can be resolved by the connection of budgetary control to TP management.
