HRM in Japan

apan, unlike the United States, has a homogenous culture and foreign immigrants account for a very small percentage of its population. The Japanese society is characterized by a strong sense of group and community (Hofstede 1984). People’s loyalty to the group to which they belong supersedes their personal interests, in particular for the company where a person works. The society has vertical stratification by institution, professionals, or academic background.

Also, Japanese companies operate a rigidly hierarchical system. Status is clearly signaled in several of ways, for example, the extent to which one bows when meeting others, sitting arrangements at a meeting, and the terms one uses to address people of different ages and professions. The Japanese language itself signals the relative status among speakers. The emphasis on endurance and harmony in the collectivist society (Hofstede 1984) encourage team work and a consensus style of management at workplace.

For much of the postwar era, employment in large firms was based on the so-called “three pillars”- lifetime employment, seniority-based pay, and company-based unions (Jacoby 2005). Although these traditional characteristics are undergoing dramatic changes, some of them still remain. For example, job rotation between various functions within an organization is also a feature of Japanese HRM. Unlike American companies, most of the large Japanese firms do not like to recruit in order to fill specialized job-slots. The companies have a regular intake of new graduates every year and train them in-house and by job rotation to foster them as a generalist, “all-round player.” For this reason, most of the Japanese companies do not implement position management systems, hence, there are no job descriptions for each position; the quantity of work and the level of responsibility for an employee are very flexible and rely on the employee’s skills and knowledge.