Exploring Organisational Deterioration: ‘Organisational Deadweight’ as a Cause of Malfunction of Strategic Initiatives in Japanese Firms

This paper examines the symptoms of organisational deterioration by proposing an original construct named ‘organisational deadweight’. The construct is designed to capture excess organisational load – unnecessary organisational burdens that divert managers' resources from their organisational goal – as a symptom of deterioration at Business Unit level. Based on empirical findings from a survey of 768 respondents in 107 business units in 18 Japanese firms, we explore the links between organisational characteristics as causes of organisational deadweight, and their effects on organisational performance. As previous literature on Japanese management has focused on the strengths of Japanese firms, we aim to fill the void by clarifying the empirical findings on whether and to what extent the symptoms of deterioration have prevailed in Japanese firms. Finally, we try to identify the root causes of deterioration, with some managerial implications for recovery.