2 / 414
2016 MTPC keynote speech
2
1. Introduction
Many Japanese companies were obliged to reform various aspects of their management
system after the “economic bubble” burst of the 1990s. This led to a drastic change in
various management aspects related to the market, technology, and the social system. These
companies made strenuous efforts to adapt to these changes in the business environment.
Several keywords such as corporate governance reform, rampant merger and acquisition,
new strategic alliance, corporate social responsibility (CSR), results-based personnel
management, and reward management, indicate these changes that spread after the 1990s.
However, these new trends seem to have subsided over the past several years, and these
companies are gradually entering into a new phase where they need to build new structures
in order to cope with the environmental changes. Simultaneously, issues with the newly
established systems have been steadily emerging. Currently, Japanese companies are
exploring a new long-term vision in order to prepare for the future and consider these issues.
Kambayashi (2013) analyzed Japanese management system focusing on four aspects of
corporate management – system, strategy, organization, and personnel management. It
regards the aggregation of the new management system in Japanese companies as the
Japanese style management system. With emphasis on these four aspects, research was
conducted on the basic structure of the Japanese style management system after changes in
the market, technology, and society. Further, specific functions of the basic structure of the
Japanese style management system were studied including a discussion and analysis on the
direction of future changes. As a result, in the fields of organization and human resource
management, Japanese companies introduced a mechanism close to the American style. At
the same time, however, they preserve the “Japanese style” and attempt to explore a
mechanism suitable to Japanese companies.
Reforms of corporate governance were widely discussed in the 1990s in studies on
“Japanese management.” It is the author’s basic understanding that the discussions have
made little progress since Americanization became apparent in governance and the
management system. There have also been few studies conducted on the internal aspects of
an organization that practices traditional Japanese management theory from an academic
viewpoint.
Over the past several years, as Japan has experienced the rapid expansion of
globalization and the full-scale arrival of an aging society with a declining birthrate, the
country has also seen an increase in efforts by government, workers, and employers to
promote and enhance “work-life balance”. For example, at the government level, the “Expert