Synopses & Reviews
Japanese employment, corporate governance and management issues set in context of modern business practice.
Review
"After so many facile generalizations about Japan's so-called 'lost decade', it is good to have such a clear and comprehensive analysis of what has actually been happening to Japanese corporations. Inagami and Whitaker provide both a practice of general trends in employment, organization and finance, and fascinating detail of the style and rate of change in one of Japan's great companies. No one will ever again be able to talk airily about 'the Japanese community firm' without reading their meticulous and subtle analysis of the ways in which Japanese firms were, and the extent to which they remain, communities of employees." Professor Ronald Dore, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science"This timely and well-written book is jam-packed with data and insights. It is a welcome addition to the literature on the evolution of Japanese firms. Combining troves of data on trends across a large spectrum as well as an in-depth historical overview of Hitachi, this book is a must-read for students of Japan as well as anyone interested in the future of economic enterprise and company-employee relationships." Schon Beechler, Associate Professor, Columbia Business School"A timely book on an important topic. How have Japanese firms responded to the challenges of the 1990s? This volume brings welcome empirical evidence to the debate." Michael A. Witt, Assistant Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management, INSEAD
Table of Contents
Part I. The End of the Community Firm?: 1. Company as community; 2. The classic model: benchmark for change; 3. Change and continuity; 4. Company professionals and creative work; 5. Corporate governance and managers' ideologies; 6. Consolidated management and quasi internal labour markets; 7. Summing up; Part II. Hitachi: 'Here, the Future': 8. Hitachi: a dancing giant; 9. A victim of its own success?; 10. Organization reform; 11. Recasting the employment relationship; 12. The impact on industrial relations; 13. Evaluation; Part III. The Reformed Model: 14. New model in the making?; Appendix; References.