What has Research into Japanese Industrial Relations Elucidated over 20 Years?

This paper addresses issues of current Japanese IR by assessing over 20 years of empirical research and the methodologies employed. A general overview of features of Japanese Industrial Relations (IR) since 1970, divided into three time frames, will broadly analyse the types of conditions and factors that have brought about change. We will then consider the major achievements of such empirical research, looking at the first half of the 1980s, the latter half of the 1980s and the 1990s, respectively. After a brief consideration of the critical awareness, analytical content and facts emerging since 1980, we will evaluate respective contributions and the issues presented; and on this basis, we will discuss the direction that future research should follow, by pointing out the features and problems of Japanese IR as a whole. The above will clarify the level attained by these studies and the characteristics of Japanese IR. Only by examining such research can we elucidate problems facing Japanese IR in a changing and harsh economic environment: how problems can be overcome (or not), what decisive factors are involved, and what new issues have arisen. The biggest problem of Japanese IR is the paradox that its highpoint came about through the unions' cooperative approach; but this was essentially a malfunction of labour unions, or a ‘hollowing-out’ of IR. Research into this area needs therefore to take a broader socio-economic perspective within the structural context of Japanese society, in order to elucidate reasons for union malfunction and investigate how to eliminate this.