Asian Business & Management

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.

The role expected of corporations in society is not fixed, but changes when the society forming the basis of the market economy transforms. Since the 1990s, a lively, ongoing debate has occurred as to whether the negative aspects of globalization can be overcome. In the current environment, which demands both social and environmental sustainable development, calls for corporate social responsibility are getting louder. With the growth of green consumerism and socially responsible investments, the evaluation of corporations is being based not only on financial, but also on social, indices. Specialist organizations now survey and rate corporate activities from an environmental–social perspective and provide information to consumers and investors, who in turn make decisions based on this evaluation; corporations thus receive positive or negative sanction from consumers and/or investors based on these ratings. Should this system become established in the marketplace, corporations will have to manifest a system that incorporates social fairness and environmental responsibility, and accept their accountability to stakeholders for their economic activities. This paper examines global trends and new possibilities in corporate responsibility, making a particular study of the current Japanese situation.

Since the beginning of its economic reforms in 1979, China has been searching for an effective corporate governance system for its state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Although some progress has been made, a large proportion of SOEs remain inefficient and uncompetitive, and in general they have failed to exploit their advantages in scale, experience and resources. This paper argues that this is mainly due to poor corporate governance, in the broad sense of control relationships. The structure and culture of these relationships creates poor disciplinary and incentive mechanisms, and these not only cause poor management in a day-to-day sense, but distort technological development. Management has an incentive, in general, to avoid spending over the long term, and in particular to avoid investment with low visibility. We show how this tends to privilege the upgrading of technology in such a way that the enterprise remains dependent on external sources. We conclude with proposals to change the financial and corporate governance system to improve the situation.

This paper analyses the characteristics of relationships between stakeholders and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholders. Previous researches on relationships between enterprises and stakeholders have demonstrated two characteristics, of ‘restriction’ and ‘transaction’, but they do not appear to shed much light on recent developments. This is partly due to the new trend of corporate dialogue with stakeholders, aimed either at addressing social issues or with a view to acquiring a positive perception through such dialogue; we see this process as one of ‘value creation’. Stakeholder dialogue is more established in Europe, where CSR has developed most extensively, than elsewhere. Today, European enterprises are moving towards a standardized system to formalize and evaluate the value of stakeholder dialogue. Japanese opinion, however, is not always in favor of such standardization, as in Nonaka' Knowledge Creation Theory, which argues that all innovation is produced through a creative process of solving contradictions and conflicts, rather than through applying objective processes. This paper discusses the context of stakeholder dialogue and the Japanese perception of its application.

This article examines how two types of Japanese business group networks impact on firm innovation and global learning. Both the general network and Japanese business group literature have emphasized the important role this kind of tightly knit and stable network plays in facilitating the innovation of firms. Yet little is known of the different effects of the two types of business groups on innovation: horizontal versus vertical. In this article, we argue that the horizontal business group network, owing to its inter-industry conglomerate structure, promotes innovation of a wider knowledge-exploration type, whereas the vertical business group network, owing to its intra-industry supply chain linkage, promotes innovation of a close knowledge-exploitation type. In terms of global learning, it is hypothesized that the more domestically explorative horizontal business group network imposes a constraint on international innovation, whereas the vertical business group network does not. Empirical results largely support these arguments.

This study seeks to systematically investigate the contribution of social capital to individual performance. We conceptualized social capital along three dimensions (structural, relational and contextual) and examined the relationships between social capital along these dimensions and two types of performance (managerial and innovative), using data collected from the strategic product development departments of six large Korean manufacturing firms. As expected, we found a significant relationship between the centrality of a network and individual performance. When network centrality was decomposed into three types (advice centrality, influence centrality and idea centrality), however, the relative strength of each type changed significantly based on performance type. We also found that the number of weak ties had a significant positive effect both on innovative and managerial performance. When considered together with network centrality and absorptive capacity, however, weak ties turned out to be non-significant as predictors of managerial performance, but the strongest predictors of innovative performance. In contrast, absorptive capacity had a positive effect on both types of individual performance, while its strength as a determinant of individual performance was weaker than that of network centrality and weak ties.