Forty Years On: Researching the Globalization of the Japanese Firm in the UK

Forty years have now passed since the economic relationship between Britain and Japan started to deepen beyond arms-length trading ties. This article presents an overview of research on the globalization of the Japanese firm by looking at work produced from the UK standpoint over the last four decades. By reconfiguring and re-presenting existing research on the Japanese firm, the article seeks to challenge some established orthodoxies by presenting analyses and arguments on the following three subjects: the system of employment in large Japanese organizations, industrial convergence and the ‘japanization’ of British industry thesis, and Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK. Although the article continues to recognise the relevance of cross-national perspectives and comparisons, it also urges scholars to take account in their discussions of socio-economic systems at the sub-national and trans-national levels of analysis

The Employment of Older People: Can We Learn from Japan?*

The level of employment among older people, including those above retirement age is very high in Japan. This has been attributed to the lifetime employment system, and provisions for external transfers and demotions that allow wages to be reduced as people pass middle age. The paper points to how the structure of Japanese industry is also important and how many older Japanese are working in relatively unproductive and sheltered jobs. Moreover, it questions whether the lifetime employment system can survive, and shows how early retirement schemes, similar to those in the west, are being introduced as a response to continued recession. On top of this, external pressures for deregulation are threatening the ability of protected sectors to absorb older people. Japanese employers have a tendency, as do western employers, to discard older people. All employers will, in the face of population ageing, have to learn how to use older people better. The Geneva Papers (2005) 30, 620–637. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510051

Flexibility in Japanese internal labour markets: The introduction of performance-related pay

Japan, Employment practices, Internal labour markets, Institutional change, Performance-related pay,