Paper short abstract:

This paper pursues to shed light on the trend of retrogression of employee’s “voice” and progression of “silence” after the collapse of bubble economy from the 1990s in Japan and provide an implication that measures of employees’ involvement in decision-making process are needed.

Paper long abstract:

Based on the typology of social choices introduced by a German economist and thinker A. O. Hirschman’s “Exit, Voice and Loyalty” (1972), this paper pursues to exhibit the factors that made impacts on employees’ “voice” retrogression and “silence” progression in Japan during the post-bubble period after the 1990s by observing changes in shareholding structures, employees’ engagement in management decisions and their pursuit for better work conditions, weakening labour unions, and shift in employees’ “loyalty” to their workplaces.

With the hypothesis that overall change in corporate governance, labour economic, and organisation behaviour conditions have been roughly inducing retrogression of employee “voice” and progression of “silence” in Japan, deductive method was taken to validate the hypothesis that the environment of employees’ “voice” retrogression and “silence” progression in Japan became stronger during the post- bubble period after the 1990s.

The findings include evident trends of employee “silence” behaviours backed by weakening labour unions and introduction of merit-based human resource appraisal systems. On the other hand, there were factors that induced employee “voice” during the period, as companies concurrently tried to adopt more transparent and democratic ways of bottom-up or middle-up corporate governance measures, such as workplace governance committees, employees’ participation in executive and/or board meetings, and so called the 360-degree human resource evaluation systems.

While market and management conditions are changing and are putting pressure on employees’ proactive commitment, practical implication of this paper’s observation is to explain about the need in introducing measures for employees to engage in decision making process in various ways. It would hold true even more seriously as labour shortage can be expected in the future in Japan.

Meanwhile, this research does not intend to state flatly that Japanese employees had stronger degree of liberty under the period of so-called “Japanese employment system”. It is because “Japanese employment system” was not something that people achieved over fighting for their freedom but was rather a consequence of various concessional attempts reached after the ups and downs in the post- World War II period.

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Paper short abstract:

We try to find out why workers quit the company they are currently employed. Exploring social or personal factors that affect workers' decision-making processes will reveal how they shape turnover intention. We compare workers in Japanese companies with those in foreign companies in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

A feature of the labor market in Japan is that it is less liquid than Europe and the United States. In particular, it has been said that changing jobs between Japanese firms and foreign-owned firms in Japan are quite rare. This lack of mobility may reflect differences in the management style between Japanese and European/American firms, and between Japanese firms and subsidiaries of those Western firms in Japan. We also posit that behind low mobility, quitting in Japan is accompanied by a negative image.

In this study, we compare how employees form their intention to leave the currently working firms between workers of Japanese firms and those of foreign-affiliated companies. We perform multiple-group analysis with the data collected in February 2019 via means of web-site questionnaire research. The turnover intention has been employed in many previous studies as an appropriate proxy variable for predicting actual turnover behavior. As explanatory variables, we apply such variables as support from one's boss, commitment to the organization, positivity/negativity of workers, firm-specific skills and general skills, attitude toward work-life balance, and perceived career opportunities at the current firm, other Japanese firms or foreign firms.

We are particularly interested in (1) the relationship between types of skills and perceived career opportunities inside/outside the current firm, (2) the influence of work-life balance or other personal characteristics like positivity and negativity on perceived career opportunities and turnover intention, and (3) the impact of boss's support on skill acquisition and turnover intention.

Comparing the means of latent factors reveals many apparent differences. Another interesting finding from the comparison of path diagrams relates to the relationship between the characteristics of employees and perceived opportunities in other Japanese firms in the case of employees of foreign-owned firms. For positive employees, there is no significant relationship, suggesting that they are doing well at current foreign firms, thus see no need to change employers. Contrarily, a significantly positive relationship between negativity and perceived opportunities in other Japanese firms, suggesting that negativity at foreign firms provoke the feeling that they may be able to perform better in other Japanese firms.

Paper short abstract:

In this article we try to study the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the development of telework in Japan. We also seek to explain why telework has not developed as much as it has in other OECD countries.

Paper long abstract:

In Japan, as in most developed countries, the COVID-19 crisis had led to renewed interest for telework as a Business Continuity Management tool. Indeed, this practice experienced a boom from the beginning of 2020, with a peak of use never reached so far between the months of April and June 2020. This research aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the development of telework in Japan. In the first part of this study, we take stock of the development of telework in Japan before the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. This analytical work makes it possible to define the Japanese specificity in terms of the use of telework, as well as to highlight the dynamics underway among companies before the crisis. In a second step, we seek to assess the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the degree of telework use. We are particularly interested in the evolution of disparities according to industries, geographical location or company size. We then look at the nature and degree of difficulties encountered by workers in using telework during the first two quarters of 2020. In a final step we seek to explain why telework has not developed as much as it has in other OECD countries and discuss the future prospects for telework in Japanese work practices.