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Episode details

World Service,22 Nov 2011,18 mins

Japan's yes men

Business Daily

Available for over a year

Is Japan's business culture less sparkling and efficient than its image suggests? The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo reports on how remarkably unproductive Japanese industry really is. And Lesley Curwen talks to the former president of the Japanese company Olympus, Michael Woodford, who blew the whistle on losses which it had hidden for many years. He suggests the country's business culture is flawed by a lack of oversight and criticism. Plus author Margaret Heffernan suggests managers everywhere in the world may be affected by 'wilful blindness' when trouble is brewing.

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