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Paper short abstract

This study shows that employee voice can narrow, and silence can expand, in-house organisational strata in Japanese firms. Using qualitative cases analysing before and after post-bubble restructuring, it finds that proactive voice helps protect workers, while silence allows stratification to grow.

Paper long abstract

This study aims to develop a theory explaining how employees’ “voice” and “silence” shape the expansion or reduction of intra-organisational strata within Japanese organisations. Postwar Japanese firms were long characterized by integrated blue- and white-collar employment and relatively small internal status gaps. Since the collapse of the bubble economy, however, profitability declines, market competition, corporate restructuring, and diversified HR systems have led organisations toward divergent paths: in some cases status gaps have narrowed, while in others they have widened. This study hypothesizes that when employees can actively voice concerns in the face of managerial pressure, status differentials contract; when they must remain submissively silent, these gaps expand.

The research situates itself within Japan’s historical formation of enterprise unions encompassing both blue- and white-collar workers, as well as the post-1995 shift toward performance-based systems and segmented employment. Rather than viewing labour market positions as outcomes of free choice or engaging in normative critiques of inequality, the study focuses on the consequences of silence and the conditions enabling risky, Foucauldian parrhesia-like voice behaviour.

The study reviews research on organisational strata and on employee voice and silence, integrating Hirschman’s framework with recent distinctions between participatory and negotiating voice, while emphasising silence as a separate behavioural choice shaped by Japan’s limited labour mobility.

The central research question is: How do employees’ voice and silence alter in-house organisational strata? To answer this, the study conducts qualitative case research in industries central to Japan’s postwar employment model, interviewing management, enterprise union leaders, and labour union officials. Using modified grounded theory approach (M-GTA), it codes interview data to trace shifts in strata before and after organisational transformations.

The study originates from contrasting empirical cases: some unions successfully protected non-regular workers and mitigated disadvantages during restructuring, while others saw renewed status divisions as white-collar workers exited unions. By theorizing these divergent outcomes, the research offers academic originality in linking in-house organisational strata change to voice/silence behaviour—an area where silence research remains nascent in Japan. Practically, it provides guidance for workers constrained by rigid organisational hierarchies and contributes to revitalizing empirical research on labour-management relations.

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Paper short abstract

This paper proposes the “coordination state” as a new interpretation of postwar Japanese industrial policy. It offers a more accurate account than earlier concepts, such as the “developmental state,” and integrates them as well as several disparate research strands that have developed in isolation.

Paper long abstract

This paper introduces the concept of the “coordination state” to reinterpret postwar Japanese industrial policy. Since the publication of Chalmers Johnson’s \textit{MITI and the Japanese Miracle} (1982), the “developmental state” has been understood as a state in which a capable and autonomous bureaucracy—centered on MITI—shaped industrial development through market-conforming policies that guided private firms towards national economic goals. In the decades since, however, numerous scholars have questioned Johnson’s thesis, arguing that MITI’s role was more limited and that industrial policy was shaped by private firms' dynamism.

Yet no consensus has emerged. While comparative political economy and global economic history often still rely on a “strong MITI” interpretation, research directly focused on postwar Japan tends to reject the developmental state. Japanese-language scholarship has mostly refrained from engaging with the concept. This resulted in a fragmented field lacking a shared conceptual framework.

Drawing on my Ph.D. thesis—the first study to integrate a wide range of archival sources with prior studies—and informed by a theoretical approach based on market sociology, I propose the coordination state as an alternative concept capable of bridging these divides. I argue that negotiation, rather than bureaucratic leadership or private dynamism, was the principle of business–government relations in the postwar era. MITI neither directed firms nor merely provided market institutions; instead, it acted as a coordinator. It enabled coordination by creating incentives to participate in negotiation processes, participating in them itself, and underwriting the resulting compromises that enabled firms to resolve the many coordination problems they faced in rapidly transforming markets.

The coordination state offers a more accurate account of MITI’s role and clarifies how industrial policy functioned in practice. It also integrates prior concepts of postwar business-government relations and disparate areas of industrial policy research, connecting strands of scholarship that have developed in isolation. Given the growing significance of industrial policy in political and academic debates, this reinterpretation of the postwar Japanese state is crucial for providing context when Japan is cited as an example of either successful or unsuccessful policy initiatives today.

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Paper short abstract

The paper explores the evolution of Japanese general trading companies over the past decades. Through constant business model innovation and adaptation to the market, the companies have turned their weaknesses into strength and emerged into important actors responding to green economy.

Paper long abstract

General trading companies have a wide reach across business sectors – they deal with everything from rockets to ramen, from mineral water to communications satellites. They operate globally and are engaged in “development and procurement of raw materials, to manufacturing and processing, logistics, sales and services”. In other words, sōgō shōsha cannot just be seen as an intermediary but rather as an orchestrator and are important actors contributing to the green economy. Sōgō shōsha provide services, networks, knowledge and intermediation for Japanese companies and create an important pillar for Japanese economy. The aim of this presentation is to examine the changing role of sōgō shōsha in the turbulent geopolitical environment and examine how they have adapted to market needs.

Despite the importance of general trading companies, their roles and shifts during the last decades have not been addressed much in academic research. A review of secondary literature and newspaper articles on general trading companies provides a state of the field on sōgō shōsha. Secondly, document analysis is used to understand individual company perspectives.

Even though the future of sōgō shōsha has not been clear at times in the past, the companies have undergone a continuous evolution and business model innovation to respond to the societal needs of today. Using their expertise and networks across fields and sectors, sōgō shōsha play an important role in shaping developments in the Indo-Pacific region, securing supply chains and contributing to digital and green transformation.

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Conventional wisdom blames Japan's low growth on institutional failure. I argue the opposite: its institutions are efficient in delivering capitalist performance - a high profit rate and socioeconomic stability - without growth. I conceptualise this as a "stagnation mode of regulation".

Paper long abstract

Conventional analyses frame Japan’s stagnation since the 1990s as a crisis of "failed" institutions. In the media, narratives of a "Japanese disease" or of "three lost decades” have flourished. This paper offers an alternative, and original, perspective on Japan's stagnation. Deploying a Regulation Theory framework rooted in Marxist political economy, I argue that the health of a capitalist system should not be assessed through its capacity to deliver growth, but through its capacity to reproduce core capitalist social relations, that is to sustain a high profit rate and tame socioeconomic contradictions and antagonisms. If economic growth is conducive to jointly sustaining the profit rate and socioeconomic stability, it is not indispensable. By this measure, Japanese capitalism since the early 2000s performs relatively well despite low growth.

Empirically, I show that Japan’s profit rate has recovered from the 1990s and even surpassed from the second part of the 2010s the level it achieved during the high growth era. Simultaneously, socioeconomic instability remains contained. For instance, bankruptcies and financial instability lowered after the 1990s, while labor conflicts and public debt risks remain low.

This performance stems from an institutional reconfiguration since the 1990s, characterized by pragmatic neoliberal reforms layered upon collaborative social compromises inherited from the "company-ist" post-war era. This enables to skew the distribution of income towards profits to sustain the profit rate in low growth conditions, without triggering social conflict and instability. Public deficit-based concessions to social groups hurt by stagnation also contribute to sustain stability without redistributing income away from profits. Overall, the institutional system of the Japanese economy appears largely coherent and efficient in balancing capitalists’ needs for profitmaking and stability under the constraint of low growth. I conceptualise such a regime smoothing capitalist reproduction without growth as a “stagnation mode of regulation”. This concept enables to emphasize, within a unified framework, the functional dimension of various stylized facts of the contemporary Japanese economy including intensified labor and economic dualism, centralization of capital, sluggish productivity growth, the winding down of cross-shareholdings, the low level of accumulation, expansionary monetary policy, and public debt.

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This paper explains why Japan’s healthcare system has largely avoided financialization, showing how professional autonomy and the Japan Medical Association constrain capital penetration despite market-oriented reforms, offering a comparative perspective on healthcare governance internationally.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines why Japan’s healthcare system has remained relatively insulated from financialization, despite the gradual introduction of market mechanisms. In this paper, financialization refers to a process in which healthcare institutions and medical practices are increasingly reorganized as investment assets, revenue-maximizing entities, or vehicles for financial returns, rather than primarily as professional or social services. While many advanced economies have experienced such trends through private equity ownership, hospital chains, and financial engineering, Japan presents a notable contrast.

Existing scholarship on Japanese healthcare has emphasized the role of the single-payer system, fee schedule regulation, and cost control in limiting healthcare expenditures. However, these explanations alone do not fully account for why hospitals and medical practices in Japan have not been widely transformed into financial assets. Building on the author’s previous research on the relationship between health insurance policy and medical professional organizations, this paper focuses on the role of the Japan Medical Association (JMA) as a mediating actor between market forces and healthcare provision.

The JMA has historically sought to protect physicians’ professional autonomy and clinical discretion, particularly within a system dominated by small, privately owned clinics and hospitals. While the association has not opposed market activity per se, it has consistently resisted forms of organizational restructuring that would subordinate medical practice to financial imperatives. This stance has had the unintended effect of limiting external capital penetration and constraining the financialization of healthcare delivery.

By highlighting the interaction between institutional design and professional organizations, this paper argues that marketization does not automatically lead to financialization. Japan’s experience suggests that professional politics can play a significant role in shaping how economic logics are translated into healthcare systems, offering a useful comparative perspective for scholars of political economy, business, and Japanese studies.

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This study examines how Japanese companies evolve management practices after acquiring or setting up an independent company in Sweden, focusing on relationship building. A qualitative case study highlights “YORISOU” (standing-beside) management and speak up management as key factors.

Paper long abstract

This study explores how Japanese companies evolve management practices through the acquisition of a Swedish company or establishing an independent company, with particular attention to relationship building and conflict management. As globalization and technological change accelerate, Japanese companies increasingly rely on overseas acquisitions not only for financial growth but also for creating new value by integrating products and services. However, post-acquisition integration often entails challenges stemming from differences in culture, communication styles, and management practices.

Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this research draws on semi-structured interviews with two senior managers: a Japanese manager involved in a recent acquisition in Sweden and a Swedish manager with over 30 years of experience working within a Japanese corporate group. The analysis focuses on how a manager perceives cultural differences, addresses potential conflicts, and develops collaborative practices.

The findings highlight the importance of proactive relationship building through daily communication and mutual understanding. A central concept emerging from the study is “YORISOU” management, a Japanese term meaning “standing beside,” which emphasizes empathizing with local employees, respecting local culture, and jointly adapting management practices rather than imposing headquarters-driven approaches. In addition, the study identifies “speak up management” as a critical mechanism for conflict prevention and organizational learning.

The study contributes to the literature on international management and post-acquisition integration or market entry by illustrating how Japanese and Swedish management practices can be combined. Practically, it offers insights for managers involved in cross-border activities, suggesting that relational skills, proactive behavior, and cultural sensitivity are as crucial as strategic integration for achieving long-term collaboration and servitization.

Keywords:

Inter-organization, human skill, building a relationship, conflict management, servitization

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Paper short abstract

This study examines the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policy via open market operations in Japan from 2003 to 2019. Using MO-based indices and a regime-switching framework, we show that policy effectiveness peaked during 2008–2016 and declined after yield curve control.

Paper long abstract

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) plays a central role in shaping Japan’s monetary policy and, by extension, the country’s economic stability, inflation, and financial market conditions. Its policy decisions influence borrowing costs, asset prices, and expectations of households and firms. In recent years, this role has drawn renewed attention as the new Governor, Kazuo Ueda, began to raise interest rates, signaling a potential shift away from Japan’s long-standing ultra-loose monetary stance.

When conventional interest rate policy reached its limits following the 2008 global financial crisis, central banks in major advanced economies turned to unconventional monetary policy (UMP) tools. A key component of these policies has been open market operations (MOs)—central bank purchases and sales of financial assets aimed at influencing liquidity, interest rates, and broader financial conditions. In Japan, MOs became an essential policy instrument well before and after the crisis, as the economy struggled with deflation and weak growth.

This study examines how UMP implemented through MOs affected Japan’s macroeconomy between 2003 and 2019. To do so, we construct four monetary policy indices based on MOs. One index captures the overall scale of quantitative easing, while the other three measure liquidity provision targeted at different segments of financial markets. Using an empirical framework that allows policy effects to change over time, we identify three distinct policy regimes: the period before mid-2008, the crisis and post-crisis period from mid-2008 to mid-2016, and the period after mid-2016.

A key finding is that the widely noted policy shift in April 2013, when the BoJ introduced quantitative and qualitative easing, did not represent a fundamental break in policy effectiveness. Instead, unconventional policies conducted through MOs were most powerful during the second regime, when they had strong and broad effects on economic activity, inflation, government bond prices, and stock markets. In contrast, after the introduction of yield curve control in 2016, the effectiveness of MO-based policies declined significantly.

This presentation also reviews recent developments in Japanese monetary policy and discusses their implications for the future policy direction of the BOJ.

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Paper short abstract

Applying the accounting methodology of the System of National Accounts, this study analyses the impact of aging and a declining population growth rate on aggregate final consumption from 1994 to 2023. Based on population forecasts up to 2070, it then projects possible future scenarios.

Paper long abstract

Applying the accounting methodology of the Statistics of National Accounts, this paper analyzes Japan’s macro-economic performance under the influence of demographic change over the period from 1994 to 2023, when the share of the working age population declined from 69.9% to 59.5%, and the share of the population aged 65 years and older more than doubled from 14.1% to 29.1%. Demographic change influenced the composition final consumption as the aging society consumed relatively more health and elderly care services provided by the government. Even under strong demographic pressure, final consumption per capita increased by 40% and Japan's capital stock and net foreign assets grew by 66%. The impact of aging on labor supply, measured as annual hours worked per capita, was moderate due to increases in employment rates across all age groups, but mainly because of the growth in labor productivity. Based on population forecasts up to 2070 further reductions in working hours per capita due to aging are projected to remain moderate and to be more than compensated by increases in labor productivity. Given the accelerating decline in the overall population, Japan can consume part of its capital stock and run a substantial trade deficit to sustain growth in consumption per capita until at least 2070, when the age composition of its population is projected to stabilize.

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Paper short abstract

Labor platform work has expanded in Japan since COVID-19, including both low- and high-skill jobs. Based on survey data from over 7,000 freelancers and interviews, this report shows that platforms are chosen not only for flexibility but also as a means to avoid unequal power relations with clients.

Paper long abstract

Work mediated through labor platforms has been expanding in recent years. Although the number of people working as freelancers or solo self-employed has itself been increasing, it is widely argued that labor platforms have played a particularly important role in this recent expansion. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of platform-based work has become especially visible in occupations such as food delivery, including Uber Eats couriers. At the same time, there are reports that platform-mediated work has also expanded into occupations requiring relatively high skill levels.

Freelance work and labor mediated through platforms are often described as new forms of work that allow individuals to choose their working time and location with relative freedom, thereby improving work–life balance. However, beyond these commonly cited advantages, there is another major factor driving the expansion of platform-based labor: the avoidance of unequal power relationships with work providers in negotiations over wages and work content.

This report aims to clarify why certain freelancers, in particular, choose to work via labor platforms. To this end, we analyze original survey data from a sample of more than 7,000 freelancers and solo self-employed workers, including platform workers, and conduct interviews with platform workers. The analysis reveals that workers’ autonomy is closely related to who their contracting partners are and how transactions are mediated, and that this relationship constitutes an important reason for using labor platforms.

For example, when comparing cases in which the contracting partner is a former employer with cases in which labor platforms are used, the former tend to be more advantageous economically. However, the latter are associated with a relatively higher degree of autonomy in the relationship with the contracting party. Platform workers in Japan tend to avoid unequal power relationships by interposing an impersonal third party between themselves and their clients. The interview findings support this interpretation. The expansion of labor platforms in Japan can thus be largely attributed to their function as a safe haven that enables workers to avoid unfavorable power relationships.

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This study analyses the changing nature of entrepreneurial activity in Japan’s prewar life insurance industry in response to the industry’s evolution by focusing on the social status, professional background, government connections of entrepreneurs and on the role of business conglomerates.

Paper long abstract

Entrepreneurship is a defining feature of early industry formation, yet much less is known about its changing role and character as an industry evolves. Using Japan’s prewar life insurance industry as a historical case, this study compares entrepreneurs who founded life insurance companies during the industry’s formative phase (1881–1905) with entrepreneurs who entered after the industry’s institutional infrastructure had been established. Life insurance constitutes a high-trust, knowledge-intensive, and tightly regulated financial service industry offering limited room for innovation. Japan’s first viable life insurance company based on scientific methods appeared in 1881. By 1905, official mortality tables, standardized medical examinations, university-level education in actuarial and insurance sciences and an industry specific regulatory framework had been introduced, and the association representing the interests of life insurance companies had been founded. As the early period of experimentation and legitimacy-building came to an end, the business environment became characterized by standardized procedures and regulated competition. However, entrepreneurial activity continued up into the 1920s, before the consolidation phase set in. Drawing on rich company-level and biographical records, this study examines how changes in the institutional environment between the first and second phase impacted the nature of entrepreneurship. It finds distinct differences in entrepreneurial activity within the wide diversity characteristic of both development stages. These differences relate to the social status of entrepreneurs, their professional background and their connections with regulatory authorities, and to the role of business conglomerates.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, industry evolution, life insurance, prewar Japan, business history

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This paper examines the influence of policy advisors on selected socio-economic strategies in Japan. Contrary to conventional wisdom, which attributes these policies mainly to the bureaucrats, it is argued that the analyzed strategies were elaborated by the closest entourage of prime ministers.

Paper long abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of policy advisors on three socio-economic strategies in Japan: Income-Doubling Plan of the 1960s, Garden-City Concept of the 1970s, and Administrative and Financial Reforms of the 1980s. Contrary to conventional wisdom, which attributes formulation and implementation of these policies mainly to the bureaucrats representing entrenched interests of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, National Land Agency, or Ministry of Finance, it is argued that all three strategies were to a great extent elaborated by the closest entourage of prime ministers Ikeda Hayato, Ōhira Masayoshi, Suzuki Zenkō, and Nakasone Yasuhiro. Based on decision-making method, the paper highlights the role played by policy advisors – scholars, reform-minded bureaucrats and businesspersons, such as Shimomura Osamu, Kōyama Ken’ichi and Dokō Toshio, in inspiring the heads of government with clear policy visions and providing them with data necessary to effectively conduct inter-ministerial coordination. Research is based on memoirs of politicians and administrative officials, policy documents, as well as articles and books published by policy advisors.

Keywords: socio-economic strategies, policy advisors, decision-making process

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Paper short abstract

Based on previous research on employer-provided housing in Japan, this paper shifts focus from its re-emergence to its stabilization. Using recent quantitative indicators, it analyzes how new housing providers govern labor mobility beyond conventional rental market institutions.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the resurgence of employer-provided housing in Japan as an institutional device that mediates between labor market demands and housing market constraints. Building on earlier heuristic research on how worker mobility has been enabled despite rigid rental market institutions, the paper shifts the analytical focus from the emergence of such arrangements to their consolidation and normalization over the past two decades.

Rather than treating employer housing as a residual form of corporate welfare, the paper conceptualizes it as a form of housing infrastructure that actively governs labor mobility. It argues that recent transformations in Japan’s political economy—characterized by labor market flexibilization, demographic change, and the partial withdrawal of firms from long-term employment commitments—have generated demand for housing arrangements that decouple residence from stable tenancy. In this context, new types of housing providers and intermediary firms have emerged that reorganize access to housing through short-term use rights, bundled services, and corporate leasing models.

Empirically, the paper combines qualitative insights from prior expert interviews with newly available quantitative data on rent levels, dwelling size, usage rates, and regional distribution of employer-provided housing. These data are not used to establish causal relationships, but to support a structural reading of shifts in the function and positioning of employer housing within the broader housing system. The analysis identifies distinct usage patterns that point to selective forms of mobility facilitation, privileging certain worker profiles while constraining others.

By situating employer-provided housing at the intersection of labor market governance and housing market restructuring, the paper contributes to debates in political economy and economic sociology on how markets are actively shaped through organizational and institutional interventions. While empirically grounded in the Japanese case, the paper suggests that these developments anticipate broader international trends in the reconfiguration of housing, labor mobility, and corporate responsibility.

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This paper examines Japan’s regional circular economies as systems of sustainability coordination. Comparative case studies show how locally embedded rules, identities, and collaborations enable circular practices, while revealing economic limits, trade-offs, and spillovers beyond the region.

Paper long abstract

Global sustainability agendas increasingly rely on standardized indicators and firm-level commitments, yet their implementation ultimately depends on locally embedded economic and organizational arrangements. This paper examines how sustainability transitions are coordinated at the regional level by analysing Japan’s Regional Circular Economies (RCEs) as place-based economic systems.

Drawing on three comparative case studies — Osaki Town (Kagoshima), the Hokushin “Smart Terroir” initiative (Nagano), and the Kyo-Lemon project (Kyoto) — the paper investigates how local actors coordinate environmental goals, economic viability, and social acceptance under diverse territorial conditions. Rather than treating “local voices” as normative claims, the analysis conceptualizes them as carriers of place-specific knowledge, identity, and coordination mechanisms that shape collective economic behaviour.

The findings highlight three core features of regional circular economies. First, sustainability practices are embedded in locally shared rules, identities, and routines, which reduce coordination costs and support high levels of participation. Second, local circular initiatives involve continuous negotiation of trade-offs — such as efficiency versus inclusiveness, tourism versus everyday life, and behavioural burden versus environmental benefit — revealing the economic limits of purely community-driven models. Third, although RCEs strengthen regional resilience, they also generate spillovers across regions and global supply chains, raising questions about scalability and externalized costs.

By linking local embeddedness to broader economic coordination problems, this paper contributes to business and management debates on sustainability transitions, regional development, and the role of firms in fragmented global contexts. The Japanese cases demonstrate both the potential and structural limits of place-based sustainability, offering insights for multinational enterprises and policymakers seeking to align global strategies with local economic realities.

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Paper short abstract

As global AI governance fragments along geopolitical lines, Japan pursues a hybrid strategy combining regulation, innovation, and alliance-building. This paper analyses how Japan positions itself between competing AI governance models to influence emerging global AI architectures.

Paper long abstract

Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance is increasingly shaped by geopolitical competition. While early international AI summits emphasised global coordination and safety, recent developments—most notably the 2025 Paris AI Summit—have revealed deep disagreements over AI governance models. Human-rights-centred regulation promoted by the European Union, innovation-driven and security-focused approaches led by the United States, and state-centric models advanced by China are fragmenting the global AI governance landscape. These debates are unfolding amid rapid technological advances and strong investment interests, as numerous countries develop and implement their own AI strategies.

Against this backdrop, this paper examines how Japan seeks to influence emerging global AI governance architectures as an intermediary actor. It argues that Japan is pursuing a hybrid AI governance model that selectively combines European-style regulatory principles with elements of the US-led innovation ecosystem in order to maintain technological competitiveness while addressing ethical and social concerns, often framed as “human-centered AI”. This shift reflects Japan’s growing awareness of AI-specific risks, regulatory uncertainty under recent US policy changes, and intensifying competition over AI standards, infrastructure, and supply chains.

The paper analyses Japan’s recent AI strategies and technological competitiveness. Technological case studies—such as the establishment of SB OpenAI Japan and Japan’s participation in major international AI infrastructure projects—illustrate how Japan seeks to combine technological sovereignty with deep integration into global innovation networks.

Situating Japan within broader global dynamics, the paper also considers outcomes from the India AI Impact Summit, to be held in mid-February 2026, and assesses the global alliances Japan is forming, particularly with countries in Europe, Asia, and the Global South. Drawing on empirical findings from GIGA’s Digital Transformation Lab (DigiTraL), the paper evaluates Japan’s strategies, standards, and governance practices in an increasingly fragmented AI ecosystem.