Geopolitical and Economic Backgrounds for Japan’s Participation in International Associations at the Present Stage

Japan is one of the undisputed economic leaders in the Asia-Pacific region, despite the fact that in a number of macroeconomic indicators (for example, in nominal GDP) it gave the primacy to China in the late 2000s. Nevertheless, the positions of Japanese financial and industrial groups in the automotive and shipbuilding sectors, information technology, telecommunications systems, and power equipment manufacturing are still strong in the world markets. Tokyo also feels confident in the international political space - most regional problems are solved with the active participation of Japan. Accordingly, the Japanese government has all the possibilities to conduct a clear and consistent foreign policy with a maximum consideration for its own interests, as well as it has opportunities to attract a wide range of overseas partners to mutually beneficial cooperation within the framework of multilateral agreements. However, nowadays in the Asia-Pacific markets, Japanese corporations face increasing competition from Chinese and South Korean companies, which forces Japan to take into account new geopolitical situations and strive to softly promote its vision of regional development. The purpose of the study is to analyze Japans approaches to participation in current international associations and to assess the overall impact of these approaches on the geopolitical and economic space of the Asia-Pacific region. The research methodology is based on the apparatus of social sciences (comparative analysis, content analysis, economic and statistical analysis, synthesis, historical and logical methods), and is supplemented by a systematic approach to the research topic through the search and interpretation of the appropriate information.

Corporate boards, interorganizational ties and profitability: the case of Japan

We analyze the ties between 4000 Japanese corporations in the time period from 2004 until 2013. We combine data about the board composition with ownership relationships and indicators of corporate profitability. The board network exhibits some clustering, which can partly be explained by ownership relations, and a tendency to form ties to other corporations from the same sector. Connectivity in the board network (corporate board interlocks) and ownership network (shareholdings) does have an influence profitability. Firms that are linked to peers with above average profitability are more profitable than firms in other relationships. Hence, network effects partly explain why board interlocks and ownership ties are not always beneficial.

Development of Telework and its Effects on Japan’s Human Resource Management: Artificial Sociality as a Focus

This study explores social and economic activities that promote ‘telework’ and its impact on human resource management in Japan. Telework had not been common in Japan’s workplaces, but the situation suddenly changed when the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread in 2020. The Japanese government issued the declaration of emergency and encouraged the commerce, industry, and other enterprises associations to introduce telework as a ‘new way of working’. To emphasize the characteristics of telework in Japan, the article observers research outcomes published recently. We argue that there is a difference between companies’ size and location and the level of their employees’ skills: telework has already been implemented in some major companies, while there is a marginal development in online work in rural areas and in small and medium-sized enterprises. A hybrid type of face-to-face and online communications emerged as the result. The article finds out the domains where Japanese corporations adopted telework and shows some changes and effects caused by telework in work styles and human resource management. In conclusion, we systematize the data in a respective research realm and classify the elements associated with artificial sociality.

Working in and Working on Neoliberalism

This chapter explores how globalization and neoliberal economic reforms operate and are operationalized on the ground by companies. It discusses how Japanese workers responded to large-scale economic restructurings since the 1990s. It also reveals that the ideology of neoliberalism has been co-opted by Japanese corporations and management to reengineer older corporate practices in ways that were not possible before. The chapter describes key technologies of neoliberal restructuring in the form of the performance-based merit system and massive corporate restructuring that have destabilized the older corporate governance. It examines economic reforms on the ground level through the experiences and voices of employees and managers who have been on the front line of restructuring in postbubble Japan.

Reworking Japan

This book examines how the past several decades of neoliberal economic restructuring and reforms in Japan have reshaped the nation's corporate ideologies, gender ideologies, and subjectivities of individual employees. With Japan's remarkable economic growth since the 1950s, the lifestyles and life courses of “salarymen” came to embody the “New Middle Class” family ideal. As this book demonstrates, however, the nearly three decades of economic stagnation since the bursting of the economic bubble in the early 1990s has tarnished this positive image of salarymen. In a sweeping appraisal of recent history, the book shows how economic restructuring has reshaped Japanese corporations, workers, and ideals, as well as how Japanese companies and employees have responded to such changes. The book explores Japan's fraught and problematic transition from the postwar ideology of “companyism” to the emergent ideology of neoliberalism and the subsequent large-scale economic restructuring. By juxtaposing Japan's economic history with case studies and life stories, the book goes beyond the abstract to explore the human dimension of the neoliberal reforms that have impacted the nation's corporate governance, socioeconomic class, workers' ideals, and gender relations. Reworking Japan, with its first-hand analysis of how the supposedly hegemonic neoliberal regime does not completely transform existing cultural frames and social relations, will shake up preconceived ideas about Japanese men in general and salarymen in particular.

Japan’s Strategy in Internationalization of Small and Medium Sized Firms: A Case Study of Japan Internship Program

The changing labor market following the economic and socio-cultural changes in Japan, on the one hand, drives the country to increase the entry of foreign workforces, including highly skilled foreign professionals. On the other hand, number of studies on global talents in Japanese workplace demonstrates a call for structural reforms in the Japanese firms as highly skilled global talents, from their own perspective, are struggling to integrate into Japanese firms due to multiple factors. By using qualitative data from document and content analysis, this present study contributes to the growing discourse on global talents mobility in the changing Japanese corporations by discussing, from Japan side, their strategies in dealing with the emerging needs of foreign workforces. Based on a case study of METI Japan Internship Program, this study finds that Japanese government in collaboration with Japanese firms start to promote an internship program for international young talents and make use of their cultural capital to not only support host companies’ business expansion, but also to expand crosscultural exposure in the workplace and challenge the existing HRM practice of the companies. Being facilitated by the Japanese government, the program is beneficial for Japanese firms and may serve as a stepping stone for the students to work in Japanese firms in the future. This present study, therefore, suggests that global internship paves a way in channeling global talents to Japan and plays an increasingly crucial role in promoting emerging forms of internationalization within Japanese corporations.Keywords: Global talent, Internationalization of Japanese firms, Japan Internship Program, Skilled migrationPasar tenaga kerja yang berubah mengikuti perubahan ekonomi dan sosial-budaya di Jepang, di satu sisi, mendorong Jepang untuk memfasilitasi masuknya tenaga kerja asing, terutama, profesional asing terampil. Di sisi lain, sejumlah studi tentang talenta global di Jepang menunjukkan adanya urgensi reformasi struktural di perusahaan-perusahaan Jepang karena pekerja asing terampil tersebut menghadapi berbagai tantangan untuk berintegrasi ke perusahaan-perusahaan Jepang. Dengan menggunakan data kualitatif dari analisis dokumen, penelitian ini berkontribusi terhadap diskursus mobilitas talenta global dalam perusahaan Jepang dengan membahas, dari sudut pandang Jepang, strategi mereka dalam menghadapi peningkatan kebutuhan tenaga kerja asing terampil. Berdasarkan studi kasus Program Magang Jepang METI, studi ini menemukan bahwa pemerintah Jepang bekerja sama dengan perusahaan-perusahaan Jepang telah memulai program magang untuk talenta muda internasional dan memanfaatkan keterampilan mereka untuk tidak hanya mendukung ekspansi bisnis perusahaan Jepang, tetapi juga untuk mempromosikan komunikasi lintas budaya di tempat kerja dan mengritik praktik manajemen SDM perusahaan yang berjalan. Dengan dukungan Pemerintah Jepang, program ini bermanfaat bagi perusahaan Jepang dan dapat berfungsi sebagai batu loncatan bagi para peserta untuk bekerja di perusahaan Jepang di masa depan. Penelitian ini, oleh karena itu, menunjukkan bahwa program magang global membuka jalan bagi para latenta global untuk berkarier di Jepang dan semakin memainkan peran dalam mempromosikan internasionalisasi dalam perusahaan Jepang.Kata-kata kunci: Internasionalisasi Perusahaan Jepang, Japan Internship Program, Migrasi terampil, Talenta Global