The New Community Firm
Employment, Governance and Management Reform in Japan

After sweeping all before it in the 1980s, 'Japanese management' ran into trouble in the 1990s, especially in the high-tech industries, prompting many to declare it had outlived its usefulness. From the late 1990s leading companies embarked on wide-ranging reforms designed to restore their entrepreneurial vigour. For some, this spelled the end of Japanese management; for others, little had changed. From the perspective of the community firm, Inagami and Whittaker examine changes to employment practices, corporate governance and management priorities, in this 2005 book, drawing on a rich combination of survey data and an in-depth study of Hitachi, Japan's leading general electric company and enterprise group. They find change and continuity, the emergence of a 'reformed model', but not the demise of the community firm. The model addresses both economic vitality and social fairness, within limits. This book offers unique insights into changes in Japanese management, corporations and society.

Part I. The End of the Community Firm?: 1. Company as community; 2. The classic model: benchmark for change; 3. Change and continuity; 4. Company professionals and creative work; 5. Corporate governance and managers' ideologies; 6. Consolidated management and quasi internal labour markets; 7. Summing up; Part II. Hitachi: 'Here, the Future': 8. Hitachi: a dancing giant; 9. A victim of its own success?; 10. Organization reform; 11. Recasting the employment relationship; 12. The impact on industrial relations; 13. Evaluation; Part III. The Reformed Model: 14. New model in the making?; Appendix; References.