Japanese Employment Relations Research Articles

Paradoxical Autonomy in Japan’s Platform Economy

Crowdsourcing firms, their client firms and the government in Japan have advocated that crowd work provides opportunities for workers to enjoy autonomous working practices, enabling subpopulations such as women and the elderly who would otherwise be excluded from the labour market to find employment. This is far from the case. Instead, crowdsourcing is perhaps better considered a means, enabled by technological advances, by which to flexibilise the labour market. We have been witnessing a shift in the forms of domination and control imposed on labour from a direct, physical and onsite type of control to an indirect mechanism of domination that has rendered workers less visible while suppressing wages. This further implies that the paradoxical autonomy of crowd work is embedded in contemporary antagonism in Japanese employment relations.

Book review: Jun Imai, The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations: Reform without Labor

Book review: Jun Imai, <i>The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations: Reform without Labor</i>

The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations: Reform without Labour

The Transformation of Japanese Employment Relations: Reform without Labour

‘Japanese human resource management’ in post-bubble Japan

This paper assesses developments in Japanese human resource management (HRM) practices and employment relations since the country's ‘post-bubble’ economic decline and in particular following the global financial downturn of 2008. Our research findings are broadly consistent with others that have provided a mixed picture of continuity, change and diversification but the most recent financial crisis has made the negotiated nature of workplace relations more apparent. These characteristics are not readily explained by conventional understandings of Japanese HRM as a culturally or institutionally determined phenomenon. We present new empirical evidence of developments in eight automotive plants and interpret these through the application of a conceptual framework that distinguishes between the actors' orientations to action and social relations in specific exchange relations. This framing allows a better assessment of the agency involved in the emergence of a more differentiated articulation and manifestation of ‘Japanese HRM’. We explain these dynamics through reference to strategic choice and the negotiations both between local and corporate managers, and between managers and trade unions.

Changing employment relation systems in Japan: cases of the Mitsubishi Chemical Group and the Federation of Shinkin Banks

Over the past decade or so a number of changes have been observed in traditional Japanese employment relations (ERs) systems such as an increase in non-regular workers, a move towards performance-based systems and a continuous decline in union membership. There is a large body of Anglo-Saxon and Japanese literature providing evidence that national factors such as national institutions, national culture, and the business and economic environment have significantly influenced what were hitherto three ‘sacred’ aspects of Japanese ERs systems (ERSs). However, no research has been undertaken until now at the firm level regarding the extent to which changes in national factors influence ERSs across firms. This article develops a model to examine the impact of national factors on ER systems; and analyses the impact of national factors at the firm level ER systems. Based on information collected from two different groups of companies, namely Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG) and Federation of Shinkin Bank (FSB) the research finds that except for a few similarities, the impact of national factors is different on Japanese ER systems at the firm level. This indicates that the impact of national factors varies in the implementation of employment relations factors. In the case of MCG, national culture has less to do with seniority-based system. Study also reveals that the national culture factors have also less influence on an enterprise-based system in the case of FSB. This analysis is useful for domestic and international organizations as it helps to better understand the role of national factors in determining Japanese ERSs.

Employment Relations in Japan: Recent Changes under Global Competition and Recession

This article reviews the recent developments of employment relations in Japan. The period 2008—9 has been rich in dramatic changes. First, there was the financial and economic crisis of 2008 which dealt a serious blow to the fragile Japanese economy. Second, in September 2009, a new government led by the Democratic Party of Japan was elected for the first time since 1955. The traditional Japanese employment relations system with long-term employment still applies to core workers in large firms, but their share has been diminishing in favour of the continual growth of atypical employment or non-regular employees.

“Ye shall know them by their fruits”

PurposeThis paper aims to report the continental European jurisprudence origins and Roman Catholic social teaching parallels of post‐World War II Japanese industrial relations practices. It focuses on the modes of social relation in the Japanese legal employment ecology of the post‐World War II enterprise and is designed to aid understanding of Japanese management theory and practice. An additional purpose of the paper is to facilitate development of evaluative criteria for authentic adoption of Japanese management practices to other national settings.Design/methodology/approachThe approach used is an analysis of Japanese sources using industrial relations theory to explore the “working rules” governing post‐World War II Japanese employment relations. This method, grounded in a source‐comparative method, results in the derivation of comparative employment ecology models of the USA, German, and Japanese enterprise. Against this background, the potential evangelization of the American workplace is discussed in reference to Roman Catholic social teaching.FindingsSuccess in deploying Japanese management modes of production is contingent upon adaptive appropriation of their modes of social relations within the enterprise. Insofar as the latter derive from and/or reflect continental European jurisprudence and Roman Catholic social teaching, their deployment in other nations – such as the USA – becomes, first, easier to comprehend in principle (not being subject to Japanese concepts), and, second, a potentially potent form of workplace evangelization reflecting continental European industrial relations norms.Originality/valueAuthentic deployment of the Japanese management employment ecology is a form of “evangelization” of the US workplace. Furthermore, it asserts that this constitutes a potential evangelization toward continental European sensibility regarding employment rules, closely related to Roman Catholic social teaching.

Jobu Kurieishon (Job Creation in Japan), by Genda Yūji. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2004, 368 pp., ¥3,780 (hardcover ISBN 4-532-13273-8)

Changes in Japanese employment in the past decade can only be matched by the productivity of one Japanese economist, Genda Yūji, to write about them. Beginning with his Shigoto no Naka no Aimai-na Fuan (2001), Genda has produced a number of books analyzing the impact of economic downturn and risutora on Japanese employment relations. The 2001 book garnered for him two prestigious prizes—the Nikkei-Keizai Tosho Bunkashō and the Suntory Gakugeishō—and an English translation was recently published as A Nagging Sense of Job Insecurity: The New Reality Facing Japanese Youth (2005). Although only in his mid-40s, Genda has had a major impact through his research and writings on popular discourse and government policy regarding a host of employment woes that have plagued post-bubble Japan. The present volume is consistent with Genda’s general emphasis on the impact of economic recession and structural change on labor demand, especially in terms of how the latter has disproportionately affected Japan’s youth. In his characteristic way, Genda combines sophisticated analysis of quantitative data with a lucid writing style to reach not only academic economists but a broader reading audience as well. He focuses on the issue of how job creation and destruction take place, using this as a framework for understanding changes in Japanese employment during the ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s. The topic is generally studied as a technical one, given that job creation can come from an increase in jobs in existing firms or from an increase in the number of new firms, and similarly, job destruction can come from a decline in the number of jobs in existing firms or from firm bankruptcies. The complexity of the issues involved necessitates that any researcher trying to untangle the sources of job creation and loss be capable of handling data with sophisticated methods. Genda uses the firm as the unit of analysis to look at the mechanisms of how job creation and loss occurred. He posits two turning points in the 1990s. The first followed the bursting of the economic bubble in 1992, with a general contraction of employment opportunities being felt throughout the economy. More important in some ways for Genda’s argument is the second turning point, 1997, which ushered in particularly significant rates of job loss in the sector comprised of chūshō-kigyō (small firms) and in the construction industry. Genda devotes considerable attention to the small-firm sector as one of the traditional engines of job creation, a point to which I return below.

Japanese Employment Relations in Transition

In exploring why and to what extent the Japanese model of participatory employment relations has changed at the turn of the century, this article criticizes prevalent paradigms of political economy, specifically the paradigms of the neoliberals and the institutionalists, instead proposing a theoretical alternative, that of agents’ refiexivity in international competition. Contrary to the institutionalist arguments for the path-dependent persistence of a national model, the concepts of lifetime employment and seniority in Japan have changed from being sources of competitiveness to objects and conditions for reform. Additionally, in contrast to the neoliberals’ expectations based on the universal relevance of liberal markets, the Japanese adjustments do not converge towards the American liberal market model, but instead generate new divergences inspired but not determined by foreign competitors.

Implicit Contracts, the Great Depression, and Institutional Change: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Japanese Employment Relations, 1920–1940

This article combines a game-theoretic framework and a comparative analysis to study the impact of the Great Depression on private welfare capitalism. Recharacterizing welfare capitalism as an implicit-contract equilibrium, the article documents parallel institutional developments in the United States and Japan in the 1920s and the process of bifurcation thereafter. In the United States, the breach of contract by major employers induced by the depression led to the rise of explicit contracts and legal enforcement institutions. By contrast, the less severe depression in Japan allowed the maintenance of implicit contracts and the formation of complementary labor laws.This article is partly based on my doctoral dissertation. I am deeply indebted to my thesis advisors, Avner Greif, Gavin Wright, Masahiko Aoki, and John Pencavel. I am grateful to Lee Alston, Carliss Baldwin, Samuel Bowles, Adam Brandenburger, Loren Brandt, Amit Bubna, Louis Cain, David Fairris, Joe Ferrie, Price Fishback, Robert Gibbons, Claudia Goldin, Rakesh Kurana, Robert Margo, Jim Minifie, Joel Mokyr, Laura Owen, Ben Polak, Daniel Raff, Paul Rhode, William Tsutsui, Warren Whatley, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.

Japanization and/or Toyotaism?

Recently there has been a proliferation of neologisms to describe the Japanese model of management and its diffusion to other countries - for example, Toyotaism, and Japanization. Some have argued that such terms can be used to describe the direction in which, at least, British industry or work organization has been heading. This paper reviews some of this `Japanization' literature and shows that there is a good deal of confusion and lack of precision in the terms being used. Rather than necessarily abandoning all such terms, the author makes a case for retaining both Toyotaism and Japanization but also for clearly differentiating between them. His starting point is that Toyotaism should be limited to the just-in-time management method (JIT) and that this is a model even in Japan. This should be separated, conceptually, from the context in which it has thus far been successfully embodied, namely Japanese employment and supplier relations. The term Japanization can then be used to refer to the evolution and diffusion of Japanese-style employment and inter-firm relations. The author then (a) draws out some of the implications of these conceptions, including the point that the diffusion of JIT in Japan itself has been under-researched and misunderstood, and (b) assesses through the case of the car industry, the extent to which Toyotaism and Japanization apply to recent developments in British industry. Whilst developing JIT has become important to managements, there is little evidence of any serious attempts, with the exception of the Japanese Nissan (U.K.), to change systems of supervision, training, assessment and payment along the lines which the author suggests are central to the Japanese systems. He concludes that it seems premature to talk of a Japanization of work systems and that there is a need to acknowledge the limited nature of the concepts of both Toyotaism and Japanization.

Japanese Employment and Employee Relations: An Annotated Bibliography by Bill Ford, Millicent Easther and Ann Brewer (Working Environment Branch, Department of Employment and Indu strial Relations, AGPS, Canberra, 1984) pp. viii + 180, ISBN 0 644 03396 7

Japanese Employment and Employee Relations: An Annotated Bibliography by Bill Ford, Millicent Easther and Ann Brewer (Working Environment Branch, Department of Employment and Indu strial Relations, AGPS, Canberra, 1984) pp. viii + 180, ISBN 0 644 03396 7

Workers and Employers in Japan. The Japanese Employment Relations System. Edited by K. Okochi, B. Karsh and S. B. Levine. Princeton University Press/University of Tokyo Press, 1974. Pp. xii, 538. $20.

Workers and Employers in Japan. The Japanese Employment Relations System. Edited by K. Okochi, B. Karsh and S. B. Levine. Princeton University Press/University of Tokyo Press, 1974. Pp. xii, 538. $20.

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System.

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System.

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System and The Politics of Labor Legislation in Japan: National-International Interaction

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System and The Politics of Labor Legislation in Japan: National-International Interaction

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System. Edited by K. Okochi, B. Karsh, and S. B. Levine. Princeton, N. J. and Tokyo: Princeton University Press and Tokyo University Press, 1974. xii, 538 pp. Contributors, Index. $20.00.

The Description for this book, Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System, will be forthcoming.

Book Review: Labor-Management Relations: Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System

Book Review: Labor-Management Relations: Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System.

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System.

Workers and Employers in Japan. The Japanese Employment Relations System.

Workers and Employers in Japan. The Japanese Employment Relations System.

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System

Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System