First, the Oil Crunch of the 70s isn't factoring into this. That was at least 20 years previous to the time period in which we are speaking. That and even if it did factor into it, it would have been shown as beneficial to most Japanese companies as they tended to offer smaller more fuel efficent cars at the time. Devoties of automotive history will note the massive gains in market share that Honda in particular made during this time.
Second, concerning Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan, their problems started mostly in the early 90s. Nissan especially, over extending resources in an attempt to gain market share which then bit them in the ass when they weren't able to recoup the money they had shelled out. You can see this as a rapid increase in the cost of their vehicles through the mid 90s and as a dwindling R&D effort that didn't pick up again until Renault bought a majority share. Mazda, which had the best selling small pickup in the world in the early 80s started it's downward fall as early as 89 and 90, posting ever smaller yearly gains. Mitsubishi, despite the apparent popularity of the Eclipse, had never gotten a good foot into the world market door. This was later compounded by some poor marketing decisions, the most severe of which was a
0-0-0 financing plan that back fired.
I'm not trying to rip on Japanese companies, not intentionally anyway, because if nothing else I own two Nissans that I'm not inclined to sell any time soon. I'm just trying to show, that like everyone else, they too shoot themselves in the foot now and again. I don't think anyone could make a legitimate claim that any automotive company is "better managed" than any other one because they all display quite a bit of stupidity. They all have made vehicles and even whole sub-divisions of vehicles that have failed miserably. All have slammed their dicks in the marketing door plenty of times. Even Honda, which is known for being to make just about anything work, has lost tens of millions in it's continued quest to make a CVT trans that people will buy. Any argument that one company or another is better managed or has made better business decisions can be countered by something shrewd said company has done. Like the Aveo that is selling quite well under the Chevy line was originally a Daewoo car called the Kalos, rebadged and sold by the parent company GM. Considering that GM picked up Daewoo for pennies on the dollar, it was a nice move. But on the flip side, they tried to improve most of their engine line by tighting up their design tolerences, which they were unable to reproduce in mass quanity. If you have heard a low mileage GM with some pistons slapping around, that was usually the root cause. They have worked out most of that mess in the last year but it still leaves a bunch of broke dick engines sitting around.
Long story short, humans are humans the world over, especially CEOs of car companies.