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Management and Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Solomon B. Levine
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Extract

In any highly industrialized country, especially one which relies mainly upon private enterprise for its economic development, the managerial system assumes a position of critical importance. It has been widely recognized in this connection that practices and policies developed by management are principal determinants of employer-employee relations and, in turn, affect significantly the outcome of many economic, social, and political problems that emerge in the process of industrialization. Close examination of management in varying cultural and national settings helps to understand the nature of conflicts existing in modern industrial societies and may furnish clues to their solution. A recent study comparing present-day business management in Western Europe and the United States represents a first step in this direction. This article deals with Japan—still another nation in which modern industrialization operates largely under a system of private enterprise the characteristics of which contrast sharply with America.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , November 1955 , pp. 57 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1955

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References

2 “Thus, the study of the nature of business organizations and the elites that direct them is central to any full understanding of the labour problem in industrialisation.’! (Kerr, Clark, Harbison, F. H., Dunlop, J. T., and Myers, C. A., “The labour problem in economic development: a framework for a reappraisal,” International Labour Review, 31 [03 1955], 231–232).Google Scholar

3 Harbison, Frederick H. and Burgess, Eugene, “Modern management in Western Europe,” The American Journal of Sociology, 40 (07 1954), 15–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This study notes (p. 15): “Indeed, in looking closely at management we find very important clues for understanding some of the basic social, political, and economic problems of modern Europe. The nature and status of managerial systems aid in explaining the political orientation of labor organizations, the persistence of cartels and other restrictive institutions, the lower productivity of European enterprise in comparison with its American counterpart, and the current tenuous position of capitalism in many European countries.” See, also, Slichter, Sumner H., “American and foreign industrial relations”, reprinted from The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, (02 17, 1955).Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Nobuo, Noda and Goro, Mori, Rōmu kanri kindaika no jitsurei (Examples of the modernization of labor administration) (Tokyo: Daiyamondo-sha, 1954).Google Scholar

5 For a detailed account of this period, see Lockwood, William W., The Economic Development of Japan, Growth and Structural Change, 1869–1988 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954).Google Scholar

6 Materials for this article are based in part on discussions engaged in by the author with numerous management, labor, and government officials while he was in Japan for eleven months during 1953–1954. The study was made possible by grants from the Fulbright Commission and the Ford Foundation, neither of which, however, is responsible for statements of fact or opinion contained in this article.

7 The importance of small enterprise in Japanese economic history has been often overlooked. Lockwood, (pp. 192–193)Google Scholar comments: “… large enterprises were necessary to fullscale industrialization. … But these enterprises were made possible, and derived much of their utility, from less dramatic but more pervasive changes in traditional Japanese economic life.… These small firms employed comparatively simple techniques of production and small investments of capital, but were integrated increasingly within a framework of large-scale marketing, transportation, and finance … Japan's progress in industrialization owes much to her comparative success in combining large and small enterprise in intricate patterns of cooperation.…”

A 1952 survey by the Japanese Ministry of Labor found that of 3.2 million factories in Japan, less than 5,500 employed more than 200 workers and less than 1,700 more than 500 workers. Over 99 per cent had fewer than 50 employees. According to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, in the same year 93 per cent of all business establishments were unincorporated individual proprietorships.

8 See the author's “Prospects of Japanese labor,” The Far Eastern Survey (05 and 07 1954)Google Scholar, and “The labor movement and economic development in Japan,” Annual Proceedings, Industrial Relations Research Association (12 1954), 48–59.Google Scholar

9 Referring to the zaibatsu families, Levy points out: “Their hope for security lay in being more and more successful merchants and by having their successors continue in that vein.” (See, Levy, Marion J. Jr., “Contrasting factors in the modernization of China and Japan,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2 [10 1953], 187).Google Scholar

10 Over twenty years ago an ILO report commented: “This problem may be stated as whether the future industrial organization of Japan is to be evolved in conflict between traditional influences and ideas—especially the family system—and the new ideas and institutions which in Japan as in most other countries have accompanied the growth of modern industry, or whether the means can be developed of integrating the new institutions in the traditional Japanese organization.” (See, International Labour Office, Industrial Labour in Japan in Studies and Reports, Ser. A [Industrial relations], No. 37 [Geneva, 1933], 370.)Google Scholar

11 Lockwood, , 61.Google Scholar

12 See fn. 9.

13 Referring to the beginning of Japan's industrialization, Scalapino writes: “In a period of succeeding crises, and with the voice of government constantly imploring unity and the creation of state power, the Meiji business class was ever mindful of the national goals; business enterprises even became a patriotic venture calling for unremitting zeal and wholehearted conformity to the purposes of the time.” (Scalapino, Robert A., Democracy and the Party Movement in Prewar Japan [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953], 253.)Google Scholar

14 The distinction between “patriarchy” and “despotism” in Japanese management is based upon an analysis by Mr. Okamoto.

15 In their article comparing Western European and American management, Harbison and Burgess (pp. 15–19) use like factors for delineating similarities and differences, which they term “the organizational development of the enterprise,” “the means of access to managerial positions,” and “the goals of management.” Here, the last has already been treated above.

16 Harbison, and Burgess, , 16.Google Scholar

17 Harbison, and Burgess, (p. 16)Google Scholar note that “undermanning” of European managements may be partly explained by the performance of many business operations, such as sales and industrial relations, by organizations outside the enterprise proper.

18 Typically, the levels of operating management were as follows: at top, the board of directors (jūyakkai) composed of chief stockholders, bankers, company president (shachō), and a few key division heads; next, the division heads (buchō) corresponding to each of the enterprise's major functions (sales, finance, production, control, personnel, general affairs, etc.); third, the section chiefs (kachō) in charge of units within each major division; and fourth, the sub-section chiefs (kakarichō). Below the sub-section chiefs were, in order, “foremen” (shokuchō) and group leaders (kumichō). However, as indicated below, these last were not clearly in the management hierarchy.

19 Levy, (p. 181)Google Scholar notes: “These families (the zaibatsu) instituted a sort of business civil service within their companies, and those men most successful in the competition and destined to become major figures in the various enterprises of the family were frequently brought into the family membership itself.”

20 This was important not only for entry into management, but also for other institutions such as the government bureaucracy and military establishment. See, for example, Maki, John M., “The role of the bureaucracy in Japan,” Pacific Affairs, 20 (12 1947), 391–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 One observer, however, warns: “Formal structure might be of today, but the essence and spirit were of yesterday.” See Bisson, T. A., Zaibatsu Dissolution in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), 32.Google Scholar

22 Harbison, and Burgess, , 16.Google Scholar

23 The unclear line of demarcation between management and non-management personnel in Japanese industry has created the problem of determining eligibility for trade union membership under the postwar Trade Union Law. Revision of this law in 1949 attempted to clarify the definition of eligibility, but its administration has continued to be difficult. See, the author's “Japan's tripartite labor relations commissions,” Labor Law Journal, 6 (07 1955), 471.Google Scholar

24 Because of the strategic leadership position of white-collar employees in the postwar Japanese labor movement, unions were most vigorous in opposing revisions in the Trade Union Law which attempted to define more stringently union membership eligibility based on management and non-management status. That the revisions were designed to prevent employer domination of labor unions did not impress Japanese union leaders.

25 These associations were first formed on regional and industrial bases.

26 Multiemployer collective bargaining is rare in Japan. Notable examples, however, are found in the cotton spinning, coal mining, and shipping industries.

27 For example, Nikkeiren has been instrumental in promoting the use of new supervisory training techniques, such as the Training-Within-Industry program developed in the United States during World War II, and experimentation with still other techniques such as American job classification and wage incentive systems.

28 See, Japan Federation of Employers' Associations, Analysis of Personnel Practices in the Principal Industries in Japan (Tokyo: The Federation, 1953).Google Scholar

29 The application of techniques for “scientific” personnel administration, however, has encountered serious resistance. In most instances, they run squarely into established relationships among groups within the enterprise. For example, wage system proposals based on “rational” job evaluations of the western-type have been almost impossible to install in view of the traditional practice of relating wage payments to non-productive factors.

30 This is contrary to the popular impression that Japanese unions are mainly involved in conducting political and ideological warfare. This appears true only at the national levels of organization, whose control over enterprise-wide unions is admittedly weak. However, the temptation of the local labor unions to respond to national union calls for action is a constant challenge to the management industrial relations specialists; for it is likely that the ideological and political bent at the enterprise level is less the arousing of Marxian working-class consciousness and more a means for impressing management with the need to reassume patriarchal responsibilities toward its regular employees.