July 28th, 2012 William Ouchi
William G. Ouchi (born 1943) is a researcher in the field of business management, an American professor and the author of famous management book Theory Z.
William Ouchi first came to prominence for his studies of the differences between Japanese and American companies and management styles. His first popular book in 1981 summarized his observations. Theory Z: How American Management Can Meet the Japanese Challenge made the 'best-seller' lists, and remained there for five months. His second book, The M Form Society: How American Teamwork Can Recapture the Competitive Edge, examined various techniques implementing that approach.
William Ouchi proposed 3 approaches to control in an organization's management:
Market control
Bureaucratic control
Clan control
In recent years William Ouchi has turned his attention to the organization and effectiveness of schools and issues of school district administration. He published an overview in 2003 in Making Schools Work. He chaired an education reform panel for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and some of his proposals are being considered currently. In the 1990s, he served in the administration of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
In Theory Z, Ouchi describes the art of Japanese management and shows how it can be adapted to American companies. He takes readers behind the scenes at several U.S. corporations making the Theory Z change and shows step-by-step how the transition works. Ouchi also examines the corporate philosophies that have become blueprints for Theory Z success, and looks at the evolving culture of "Z" people in society.
Professor Ouchi's new theory of management promises to change the way managers and employees alike think about their jobs, their companies, and their working lives. Theory Z, according to the best management minds in America, will soon take its rightful place in everyone's business vocabulary.
Biography of William Ouchi
William G. Ouchi is the Sanford & Betty Sigoloff Professor in Corporate Renewal at The Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He previously served as Vice Dean of the school and as Chair of the Strategy and Organization Area of the school. He is the author of four books and of scholarly articles on organization and management. His first book was Theory Z: How American Management Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (Addison-Wesley, 1981). Theory Z was on the best seller list for five months, has been published in 14 foreign editions, and ranks as the seventh most widely held book of the twelve million titles held in 4,000 U.S. libraries. His second book, The M-Form Society: How American Teamwork Can Recapture the Competitive Edge (Addison-Wesley, 1984), reports on a three year effort by a team of 16 researchers led by Professor Ouchi. The M-Form Society has appeared in four foreign editions to date. His third book, Organizational Economics (Jossey-Bass, 1986), was co-edited with Jay B. Barney. His fourth book, Making Schools Work, will be published in September of 2003 by Simon & Schuster.
Dr. Ouchi was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he graduated from the Punahou School in 1961. He received his B.A. at Williams College (1965), his M.B.A. at Stanford (1967), and his Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Chicago (1972). He has been a member of the faculties at the University of Chicago, Stanford University, and UCLA from 1979 to the present. During 1993-95 he served as advisor and then as Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard Riordan in Los Angeles. From 1996-1999 he served as Vice Dean for Executive Education of the Anderson School.
At UCLA, Professor Ouchi teaches courses in management and in organization design. He was Co-Chair of the UCLA School Management Program. He continues as Chairman of the Riordan Programs, which serve minority high school and college students in Southern California and also is the founder of the Nissan-HBCU Summer Institute, which serves the professoriate of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities of the U.S. He is Chair of the George and Kimiko Nozawa Endowment, which grants scholarships to students from Japan. Professor Ouchi also serves on several other committees and boards of the Graduate School of Management, supervises doctoral candidates, and carries on his own research on the management of K-12 schools.
In service to the profession, Professor Ouchi has served on the editorial boards of four scholarly journals and serves as advisor to several granting agencies. He serves on the boards of AECOM, KCET public television, Allegheny Technologies, Water-Pik Technologies, FirstFed Financial, Sempra Energy, The Japanese American National Museum and the Advisory Board of the Commission on Presidential Debates. He also serves on the board and is past Chair of Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN) and past Co-Chair of the Los Angeles County Alliance for Student Achievement. He is an advisor to the Joint Senate-Assembly Committee on Preparing California for the 21st Century, and is a past member of the Consumer Advisory Committee of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Executive Advisory Board of the Asian Business League of Southern California. Professor Ouchi resides in Santa Monica, California with his wife. They have three children.
References
http://www.williamouchi.com/bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ouchi
