IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v9y2000i5p525-553.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Japanese employment system in transition

Author

Listed:
  • Dirks, Daniel
  • Hemmert, Martin
  • Legewie, Jochen
  • Meyer-Ohle, Hendrik
  • Waldenberger, Franz

Abstract

In the post-bubble era, Japan is going through major structural upheavals and the relevance of the five perspectives presented here on the implications of these changes for the Japanese employment system can hardly be overstated. The institutions and practices of the Japanese employment system are closely linked to the Japanese model of skill formation, human resource management and innovation. The relevance of "lifetime employment" for the accumulation and preservation of knowledge within companies has been documented for example in comparative studies on the Japanese and US semiconductor industries. The knowledge sharing, problem solving capacities and high commitment of Japanese employees are very much enhanced by the late selection characteristics as implied by "seniority" based promotion schemes. If the skills, the innovative capacities and the commitment of Japanese employees have been so much supported by the salient features of the Japanese employment system, it is essential to see what is happening to the latter when reflecting on the future of the former. This is the prime purpose of this article. Each of the following sections looks at specific changes in the economic environment, that are challenging the further viability of "traditional" human resource management practices: In particular, the first section looks at the rapid aging of the work force as a key "domestic" factor, while the second section looks at the implications of Japanese internationalisation in the post-bubble era and, especially, the "hollowing out" of the industrial system due to increasing competitive pressures from low labor cost countries. Adaptations necessitated by these challenges have already transformed the Japanese employment system and will continue to do so, as is discussed in the third section. It is not difficult to guess that this will have repercussions on the process of knowledge creation and transfer in the Japanese economy and the final section therefore looks specifically at the changes to the Human Resource Management system in the Japanese Innovation System.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirks, Daniel & Hemmert, Martin & Legewie, Jochen & Meyer-Ohle, Hendrik & Waldenberger, Franz, 2000. "The Japanese employment system in transition," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 9(5), pages 525-553, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:9:y:2000:i:5:p:525-553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593100000172
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hashimoto, Masanori & Raisian, John, 1985. "Employment Tenure and Earnings Profiles in Japan and the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 721-735, September.
    2. Hashimoto, Masanori & Raisian, John, 1992. "Employment Tenure and Earnings Profiles in Japan and the United States: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 346-354, March.
    3. Lipsey, Robert E & Weiss, Merle Yahr, 1981. "Foreign Production and Exports in Manufacturing Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(4), pages 488-494, November.
    4. Gerhard Wiesner, 1994. "Japans technische Intelligenz : Personalstrukturen und Personalmanagement in Forschung und Entwicklung," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 47(05), pages 15-18, October.
    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. Slater, Stephanie & Robson, Matthew J., 2012. "Cultural interpretations of destructive acts and trust in Japanese supply channel relationships," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 357-368.
    2. Pease, Stephanie & Paliwoda, Stanley & Slater, Jim, 2006. "The erosion of stable shareholder practice in Japan ("Anteikabunushi Kosaku")," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 618-640, December.
    3. Saka-Helmhout, Ayse, 2010. "Organizational learning as a situated routine-based activity in international settings," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 41-48, January.

    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. Masakatsu Okubo, 2015. "Earnings Dynamics and Profile Heterogeneity: Estimates from Japanese Panel Data," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(1), pages 112-146, March.
    2. Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2011. "Cyclical behavior of unemployment and job vacancies in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 214-225.
    3. Kato, Takao, 2001. "The End of Lifetime Employment in Japan?: Evidence from National Surveys and Field Research," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 489-514, December.
    4. Masanori Hashimoto & Yoshio Higuchi, 2005. "Issues Facing the Japanese Labor Market," Working Papers 05-01, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Ken Yamada & Daiji Kawaguchi, 2012. "Changing Unchanged Inequality: Higher Education, Youth Population, and the Japan's Seniority Wages," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd12-243, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    6. Ohkusa, Yasushi, 1995. "Testing for the matching hypothesis in Japanese manufacturing," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 175-198, July.
    7. Huizinga, H.P., 1996. "Intrafirm Information Transfer and Wages," Other publications TiSEM e39998b3-304d-485b-b186-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Ken Yamada & Daiji Kawaguchi, 2015. "The changing and unchanged nature of inequality and seniority in Japan," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(1), pages 129-153, March.
    9. Eliasson, Gunnar & Lindberg, Thomas, 1986. "Economic Growth and the Dynamics of Wage Determination: A Micro Simulation Study of the Stability Consequences of Deficient Variation in Factor Prices and Micro Structures," Working Paper Series 170, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised Aug 1988.
    10. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2011. "Schooling, employer learning, and internal labor market effect: Wage dynamics and human capital investment in the Japanese steel industry, 1930-1960s," MPRA Paper 30597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Walid Hejazi, 2005. "Are Regional Concentrations of OECD Exports and Outward FDI Consistent with Gravity?," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 33(4), pages 423-436, December.
    12. Peter Chinloy, 1989. "Measuring labor cost for productivity comparison," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 5-19, March.
    13. David Kucera, 1998. "Unemployment and External and Internal Labor Market Flexibility: A Comparative View of Europe, Japan, and the United States," SCEPA working paper series. 1998-21, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    14. M. T. Alguacil & V. Orts, 2003. "Inward Foreign Direct Investment and Imports in Spain," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 19-38.
    15. Chakraborty, Debashis & Mukherjee, Jaydeep & Lee, Jaewook, 2016. "Do FDI Inflows influence Merchandise Exports? Causality Analysis on India over 1991-2016," MPRA Paper 74851, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Takashi OSHIO & Seiichi INAGAKI, 2014. "Does Initial Job Status Affect Midlife Outcomes and Mental Health? Evidence from a survey in Japan," Discussion papers 14025, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    17. Mann, Catherine L., 1993. "Determinants of Japanese direct investment in US manufacturing industries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 523-541, October.
    18. Syed Tehseen Jawaid & Syed Ali Raza & Khalid Mustafa & Mohd Zaini Abd Karim, 2016. "Does Inward Foreign Direct Investment Lead Export Performance in Pakistan?," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 17(6), pages 1296-1313, December.
    19. GENDA, Yuji & KURODA, Sachiko & OHTA, Souichi, 2011. "Does downsizing take a toll on retained staff? An analysis of increased working hours during recessions using Japanese micro data," ISS Discussion Paper Series (series F) f154, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo.
    20. Muren, Astri & Nyberg, Sten, 2005. "Young Liberals and Old Conservatives - Inequality, Mobility and Redistribution," Research Papers in Economics 2005:9, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.

    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:eee:iburev:v:9:y:2000:i:5:p:525-553. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/description#description .

    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.