The success of the Japanese in the global economy has elicited much interest from both practitioners and academicians. Popular theories suggest that the Japanese do not suffer from the short-term financial focus that plagues many U.S. manufacturers but tend to view decisions based on their long-term consequences. As a result, authors have suggested that the criteria used to assess employee performance in Japan tend to reflect this view. This paper reports the results from eight plants in Japan of five Japanese companies regarding the criteria used to assess employee performance. The types of criteria used at various levels in the management hierarchy as well as the specific criteria used are discussed. Previous studies reported that top level managers were most concerned with non-financial criteria while lower level managers were evaluated by physical type measurements. The results from this study partly contradict these findings in that top-level Japanese managers reported profitability as their most important criteria.