Legitimacy of Value Engineering :

Towards a sociological understanding of Target Cost Management

Abstract

This paper focuses on the diffusion process of Value Engineering (VE) in Japanese motor manufacturers that related to a particular situation of postwar Japanese society. Inspired by new institutional sociology, this paper argues that VE had legitimacy of ‘modernizing’ purchasing division in the organizational field, and the ambiguity of the legitimacy enabled VE to penetrate into various technologies such as Industrial Engineering, Quality Control, and management accounting.