Exploratory Study of Japanese Human Resources Management : Traditional versus Western-style approaches

This paper explores Japanese human resources (HR) management and performance management practices. Japan is renown for its traditional three-pillars of HR management. The popular edict suggests firms have moved away from traditional and shifted towards more transparent Western-style. However, existing research has focussed on formal HR policy rather than actual practice and there is inconsistent evidence as to the degree Japan has made the transition. This paper reviews ten company cases by interview at varying organizational levels. The research classified companies interviewed into three HR typologies: Those that were; 1) Western-style , with jobs clearly defined, transparent performance management, and generally strong foreign investment or international exposure. Conversely, there was the, 2) Traditionalist-style which exhibits a strong membership generalist employment system. Alternatively, the research defined a middle ground being a, 3) hybrid-style where both membership generalists and job-type specialist systems coexist. The research found that this hybrid-style has a Dual-track HR system. This means traditional Japanese generalist HR practices are preserved, whilst in parallel, a Western-styled job specialization is found. This is happening whilst Japanese working population is shrinking and there is growing competition for the available young school leaver recruits whose employment expectations are rising. Further, there is increasing foreign business investment and international engagement which is creating labour market demands and exposure of Japanese traditional firms, and their employees, to Western-style firms. Notably, young recruits, and especially women, seem increasingly attracted to Western-style job specialist type firms. The findings are useful to policy makers, practitioners and foreign investors in understanding and contemplating HR trends.