Ringi seido

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Ringisho from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry with the stamps ( hanko ) of the minister and the decision-makers

Ringi seido ( Japanese 稟 議 制度 ) or ringisei ( 稟 議 制 ) describes a decision-making process in Japanese companies and authorities that includes the significant participation of all relevant employees and with this bottom-up approach, in contrast to the decision from above, which is common in Western companies ( top-down ).

With ringi seido , the upper management only provides the impetus for decision-making, in that central problems are passed on to the lower management levels to find solutions, which then starts a circular process that includes all relevant levels and departments and searches for their departmental and company-wide consensus.

The entire process takes place in the following steps: First the applicant fills out a circular file ( 稟 議 書 , ringisho ) after consulting with all concerned bodies . This is then passed on to the department responsible for formal checking and archiving (usually in the finance department), which also consults other departments. All of the resulting comments are added to the document and the document is then submitted to the manager for approval. In the case of company-wide decisions in Japanese stock corporations ( kabushiki kaisha ), the document first goes to the business management committee ( 経 営 会議 , keiei-kaigi ) for approval , which then passes it on to the management committee ( 常務 会 , jōmukai ) of the directors and main department heads , to everyone throughout the company Project managers report, and finally the symbolic conclusion by the managing director. All parties involved are then informed, the document is archived and the applicant reports on the process to his supervisor or the management committee.

This procedure results in a horizontal participation in which as many affected departments as possible are called in with their expertise, and this also happens vertically, in that not only the respective department heads are informed, but all employees in the department are called in to make decisions.

The nemawashi ( 根 回 し ) always runs in advance and in the background . The term originally comes from horticulture and there meant walking ( mawashi ) around a plant and digging up the roots ( ne ) for later transplanting. At ringi seido it means informal conversations during and after work, which serve to resolve discrepancies or to identify new problems and solutions.

Although the decision-making process in this system of employee participation takes significantly longer, it is also based on the view that the collective support of the decision ( consensus ) achieved by the employees compensates for this loss of time in the later implementation.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Rothlauf: Intercultural Management . 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-58154-6 , pp. 426 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ a b c Roblyn Simeon: ringi seido . In: Allan Bird (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Japanese Business and Management . Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-203-99632-1 , pp. 388–389 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ^ A b c Dieter Schneidewind: The Japanese company. uchi no kaisha . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 1991, ISBN 3-540-53076-2 , pp. 55–56 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).