IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2005cf345.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"Voice" and "Exit" in Japanese Firms during the Second World War: Sanpo Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Tetsuji Okazaki

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)

Abstract

During the Second World War, the Japanese government and private sector searched for and implemented new mechanisms for coordination and motivation. One of these was sangyo hokokukai (sanpo). Sanpo unit was basically an organization of the employer and employees of each firm, which held meetings to moderate labor relations. Due to the government policy to promote sanpo units, around 70% of the total workers in Japan were organized into sanpo units in the early 1940s. As the members of labor unions and the workers of the companies which had factory committees, were only 7 % and 5% of the total workers in 1936 respectively, sanpo was the first large scale mechanism for Japanese employees to voice. In this paper, I examined the role of sanpo, using prefecture level data and firm level data, based on a framework integrating the "voice view" of unionism and the transaction cost economics. It was found that sanpo reduced the participation rate in labor disputes, and enhanced labor productivity at least in some period.

Suggested Citation

  • Tetsuji Okazaki, 2005. ""Voice" and "Exit" in Japanese Firms during the Second World War: Sanpo Revisited," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-345, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
  • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cf345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2005/2005cf345.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Charles & Medoff, James, 1978. "Trade Unions in the Production Process," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(3), pages 355-378, June.
    2. Cramton, Peter C & Tracy, Joseph S, 1994. "The Determinants of U.S. Labor Disputes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 180-209, April.
    3. Nicholas Wilson & Michael J. Peel, 1991. "The Impact on Absenteeism and Quits of Profit-Sharing and other Forms of Employee Participation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 44(3), pages 454-468, April.
    4. Tracy, Joseph S, 1986. "An Investigation into the Determinants of U.S. Strike Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 423-436, June.
    5. Vroman, Susan B, 1989. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Strike Activity in U.S. Manufacturing: 1957-1984," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 816-826, September.
    6. Okuno-Fujiwara, Masahiro & Okazaki, Tetsuji (ed.), 1999. "The Japanese Economic System and its Historical Origins," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198289012.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. NAKABAYASHI, Masaki, 2008. "Tenant, Landlord, and Risk: Revisiting the Debate on Japanese Capitalism," ISS Discussion Paper Series (series F) f144, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo, revised 27 Aug 2019.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter Cramton & Morley Gunderson & Joseph Tracy, 1999. "The Effect Of Collective Bargaining Legislation On Strikes And Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 475-487, August.
    2. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2002. "Striking Features of the Labor Market," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2002/08, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    3. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2013. "Striking Features of the Labor Market: Theory," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 56(2), pages 1-24.
    4. Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent J., 2003. "Market competition and strike activity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 737-758, May.
    5. Belloc, Filippo, 2021. "Industrial actions and firing regimes: How deregulating worker “Exit” reshapes worker “Voice”," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 251-264.
    6. Ana Mauleon & Vincent Vannetelbosch, 2005. "Strategic union delegation and strike activity," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(1), pages 149-173, February.
    7. Mauleon, Ana & Vannetelbosch, Vincent, 2010. "Market integration and strike activity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 154-161, May.
    8. Miguel Malo & Nuria Sánchez-Sánchez, 2014. "The legal form of labour conflicts and their time persistence: an empirical analysis with a large firms’ panel," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 513-533, December.
    9. Peter Cramton & Joseph Tracy, 2003. "Unions, Bargaining and Strikes," Papers of Peter Cramton 02ubs, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 05 Sep 2002.
    10. Kennan, John, 1995. "Repeated contract negotiations with private information," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 447-472, November.
    11. Filippo Belloc, 2019. "Labor Conflict at the Workplace: Do Dismissal Regulations Matter?," Department of Economics University of Siena 806, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    12. Sergi Jimenez-Martin & José M. Labeaga & Mariluz Marco, 1996. "Algunos factores explicativos de la existencia de huelgas durante la negociación colectiva en España," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 20(2), pages 217-242, May.
    13. M Parameswaran, 2021. "Trade Openness and Labour Market Unrest: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing Industry," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 19(2), pages 345-373, June.
    14. Brett W. Myers & Alessio Saretto, 2016. "Does Capital Structure Affect the Behavior of Nonfinancial Stakeholders? An Empirical Investigation into Leverage and Union Strikes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3235-3253, November.
    15. Harrison, Alan & Stewart, Mark, 1994. "Is Strike Behavior Cyclical?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(4), pages 524-553, October.
    16. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2013. "Striking Features of the Labor Market: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 56(2), pages 25-53.
    17. Sheng-Syan Chen & Yan-Shing Chen & Yanzhi Wang, 2015. "Does Labor Power Affect the Likelihood of a Share Repurchase?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 44(3), pages 623-653, September.
    18. van Ours, Jan C., 1999. "The cyclical behavior of holdout durations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 365-370, March.
    19. Leila Baghdadi & Rihab Bellakhal & Marc-Arthur Diaye, 2016. "Financial Participation: Does the Risk Transfer Story Hold in France?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 3-29, March.
    20. Silviano Esteve Pérez & Mariluz Marco Aledo & María Engracia Rochina Barrachina, 2006. "A Competing Risks Analysis of Strike Duration in Spain: Agreement and Non-Agreement Outcomes," Revista de Economía Laboral - Spanish Journal of Labour Economics, Asociación Española de Economía Laboral - AEET, vol. 3, pages 14-45.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cf345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.