Philippe Debroux

• Soka University

Under demographic pressures, efforts to delay labor market withdrawal have replaced early retirement policies as a management tool of labor supply in many countries. In Japan, as the country is facing a dramatic demographic transition, the employment of elderly workers up to the age of 65 has become mandatory since 2006. This article discusses the...

This discussion draws on current literature and data from five case studies in order to highlight main explicative factors of the peculiarities in terms of how elderly workers continue to be employed in Japan. It assesses the direction followed by public authorities and private organisations to keep elderly people at work in acceptable social and e...

This brief introductory discussion develops contexts within which to compare human resource management (HRM) responses to ageing societies in Japan and Germany. Here we define key concepts that occur throughout this Special Issue. While giving due attention to the historical and current contexts for emerging challenges to HRM policy-makers, practit...

Modern Japan was built on a strong linkage between government, business and society. But it did not proceed without fight, claims or revolts, as exemplified by the history of peasants and industrial workers’ protests, the rise of environmentalist movements and the instability of the business and political system for long periods of time. The Japane...

Because of the depth and scope of its innovation system, Japan is a reference country in terms of developments in the management of innovation. Japan remains an ambitious country, and, according to recent OECD statistics, maintains its position at the top of rankings for R&D expenditure. By international comparisons, the Japanese 'national innovati...

This chapter’s objective and contribution is to describe and analyze HRM systems in East and Southeast Asia, paying particular attention to the conditions that would permit the evolution of the current systems on a sustainable basis. First of all, we describe the current context in terms of the philosophy, architecture, policies and practices under...

L’article se concentre sur la signification donnee a l’entreprenariat feminin et sur les politiques poursuivies pour le promouvoir. Dans les quatre pays, son importance a ete soulignee depuis la fin des annees 1990. Il peut enrichir l’offre, redynamiser le tissu urbain et rural et creer de l’emploi. Les femmes entrepreneurs, avec une experience man...

This detailed study of female entrepreneurship in Asia examines the high economic growth that is increasingly driven by market-oriented economic reforms favouring entrepreneurship. There is a higher awareness by women of their political and socio-economic rights and recognition by society at large of social legitimacy of women pursuing business act...

Whether companies should exercise some ‘social responsibility’ beyond economic outcomes, and how they should go about doing so, has exercised scholars for more than 50 years. For the most part, prevailing perspectives have reflected the cultural norms and regulatory frameworks of North America and Europe. Interest beyond these contexts is a relativ...

Japanese public authorities are concerned that Japanese industry is losing its competitive advantage in high technology industries. Moreover, there is a strong concern about the hollowing out of the local industrial basis during a period where the population is ageing and there is a need for the development of new fiscal resources locally. Public a...

Because of the depth and scope of its innovation system, Japan is a reference country in terms of developments in the management of innovation. Japan remains an ambitious country, and, according to recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) statistics, maintains its position at the top of rankings for research and developme...

The studies presented in this collection have outlined some of the significant and emerging changes in the patterns of innovation in Japan, illustrating with examples from across diverse industries and business sectors, and developing arguments from a number of internal and external perspectives. This concluding contribution highlights aspects of t...

Economic growth during the second half of the twentieth century was not accompanied by an improvement in the position of women in the Japanese labour market. The peripheral position occupied by women was due, in large part, to the substantial barriers created by the internal labour market with its employment practices such as ‘lifetime’ employment,...

During the last 15 years top managers selected from inside the organizations have managed the management reforms in most large Japanese companies. Autonomous governance discipline based on the respect of the post-war management-labour mutual long-term commitment agreement partly explains the relative success of the process in the transitory period....

The Japanese economy after forty years of growth entered a period of sustained economic decline in the early 1990s. Increased global competition, a rigid employment and business system, and a banking system on the verge of collapse meant that the 1990s would act as a catalyst for change and regeneration. During the latter part of this period, a num...

In an earlier study we reported that human resource management (HRM) in Japan was best characterized by continuity with some changes to assessment and pay practices. It is now over five years since we mapped out the changes taking place in Japanese HRM. This contribution reviews some of the changes over this period and considers the future directio...

Japanese per capita GDP growth has been decelerating for at least three decades despite the fact that Japan has been groping to find better ways of accommodating individualistic Smithian market forces. Japan has made great progress in opening markets, and empowering profit-seeking, yet it has not so far reaped the benefits anticipated. Facing the m...

Facing the most severe economic downturn of the postwar period, Japan is now rethinking its economic and management system. Large companies are in the process of management restructuring and many of them are launching new management programs in order to encourage entrepreneurship internally. Existing small and medium sized firms are also trying to...

The rapid economic growth and structural reform that have taken place in China over the past two decades have had a substantial impact on the system of labour management in Chinese manufacturing enterprises. The purpose of this article is to document and analyse the nature of these changes in state-owned enterprises and joint venture companies. The...

Japanese trade unions have contributed much to the economic stability and success of Japanese enterprises. Globalization has, however, placed substantial pressure on the Japanese industrial relations system and, in turn, upon the enterprise union system. Not all changes can be directly attributed to globalization. We contend, however, that the succ...

In industrialized nations, the pursuit of flexibility has underpinned enterprise reform since the 1980s. This ‘new frontier’ in the management of labour (Baglioni, 1990) is seen as the only way for firms to improve productivity and so survive in the global marketplace. Elimination of rigidities, especially those in the labour market, has been perce...

Japan's per capita GDP growth has been decelerating for at least three decades, despite groping towards better ways of accommodating individualistic Smithian market forces. Japan has made great progress in opening markets and fostering profit seeking, yet it has not reaped the benefits anticipated so far. Facing the most severe economic downturn of...

When economic growth faltered, did Japanese companies change their traditionally benevolent human resource policies? Have they become more like western companies?

The rise in thc Western concept of HRM parallels the global success of Japanese manufacturing enterprises. HRM in these firms emphasized an internal labour market and stable relationships between all stakeholders. The global environment may now require firms to shift to a more market-oriented approach. The evidence points to peripheral changes taki...

In many respects, the evolution of the nature of the investment and of the strategy of European firms has been similar to that of the US and to Japanese firms. It is necessary to differentiate between a number of cases, reflecting different strategies and objectives, changing overtime in the same company. This shift from one stage of development to...

Foreign companies have shown a great interest in penetrating the Japanese market through the means of the acquisition of a Japanese firm. However, as of yet the number and size of deals remain very limited. A number of residual regulatory obstacles can partially explain the situation, but it seems that the main obstacle comes from the inherent char...

Les entreprises etrangeres au Japon sont appelees a renforcer leur presence dans ce pays. Dans cette optique, les problemes de gestion du personnel local, du rapport a etablir entre cadres locaux et expatries, de l'integration des filiales locales dans le reseau mondial des entreprises sont des questions cruciales et particulierement delicates. Cet...

Compared to the very fast development of South-East Asia and the multiplicity of regional collaboration projects, the region bordering the Japan Sea had a rather slow development for the last 20 years and very few common projects have been developed despite high complementarity in factors endowment.The detente in the East-West relations has progres...

The Japanese state is often perceived as the archetype of the strong state controlling the society in all its aspects.The reality should be nuanced. Not only the state has never been an important commercial actor on the market but it has always been obliged to compose with private interests during the elaboration and enforcement of the legislation....

It is a common observation that normative gender roles in contemporary Japan are a hurdle to female participation in the male-dominated business world. Japan’s modern gender norm, constructed and institutionalized by the state in the late 19th century, can best be described as a system of complimentary but binary sexes in which normatively male rol...