The anatomy of Japanese QC circles

Les cercles de qualité se sont développés au Japon après la guerre en incorporant des concepts développés aux Etats-Unis. Peu d'études ont été entreprises pour mesurer l'efficacité de ces cercles, le degré des motivations des participants ainsi que les différences sectorielles. Il apparaît maintenant que la plupart des cercles sont créés non pas spontanément mais à l'instigation du management et que des écarts notables existent entre leur acceptabilité d'une part par la main-d'oeuvre ouvrière et les employés et d'autre part d'après le sexe des intéressés.Les ouvriers dans la fabrication acceptent volontiers la participation même si l'activité se fait en dehors des heures normales de travail. Il n'en est pas de même dans les services tels que banques et assurances. D'autre part, pour des raisons évidentes de gestion de leur ménage, il apparaît clairement que les femmes sont beaucoup plus réticentes à sacrifier des heures supplémentaires pour y participer

Relations between Positive and Negative Attributional Styles and Sales Performance as Moderated by Length of Insurance Sales Experience among Japanese Life Insurance Sales Agents

Past studies have shown that a sales agent's attributional style for positive and negative events is related to sales performance. The aim of the present study was to examine an agent's length of sales experience as a moderator of the relation between sales performance and attributional style for positive/negative events. 360 Japanese life insurance sales agents were assessed with attributional styles for positive and negative events (would be referred to as positive attributional style and negative attributional style, respectively), sales performance and their lengths of sales experience. It was found that relationship between sales performance and the two types of attributional styles was largely different depending upon length of an agent's insurance sales experience. Among "novices" (n = 183) whose lengths of insurance sales experience were less than three years, sales performance was related significantly to negative attributional style, whereas it was not related to positive attributional style. By contrast, among "veterans" (n = 177) whose lengths of insurance sales experience were three years or more, sales performance was related significantly to positive attributional style, whereas it was not related to negative attributional style. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Population of Circulating Primordial Germ Cells in Early Japanese Quail Embryos

Avian primordial germ cells (PGCs) show a unique migration pathway during early development. As soon as the blood vessels have formed, PGCs enter the circulatory system, and migrate to the gonadal primordium. We measured the concentration and the size of PGCs and erythrocytes from the wild-type plumage and the sex-linked brown strains of Japanese quail embryos when PGCs are in circulation at Hamburger and Hamiltons stages 13-19. PGCs were high in concentration and large in size at stage 13, and it showed a significant decrease as the function of embryonic development. Erythrocytes showed a low concentration at stage 13 and a significant increase as the function of embryonic development but the size was constant during stages 13-19. No strain difference was observed in these characters between the two strains of quail embryos

Identification of Transferred Chicken Germ Cells in Quail Gonad and Semen by Amplification of Chicken-Specific PCR Products

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primer set for a chicken microsatellite locus on the Z chromosome, LEI0171 (GenBank Accession No.X85538), amplified a 363bp fragment of genomic DNA in chickens (Gallus domesticus) but not in quail (Coturnix japonica). A concentration of at least 10pg/μl of chicken DNA in the reaction mixture resulted in detectable amplification of the PCR product. Circulating primordial germ cells (PGCs) of chick embryos were transfused into quail embryos, and the chicken-genome-specific PCR product was observed in the chick-PGC-transfused chimeric quail when DNA samples were extracted from whole day-6 embryos, day-10 and -15 embryonic gonads, gonads of 5-day chicks, and the semen of adults