Human resource management systems differ across corporations around the world. Japan has unique characteristics that create specific challenges for HRM and there is currently a lack of research focusing on Japanese HR issues available to westerners. This book examines the major challenges and dilemmas in human resource management as Japan's industrial society continues its resurgence in the global arena. The first part of the book deals with Japanese HRM from an international perspective, analysing the overall structure of Japanese HRM systems and comparing these with current international systems. The second part of this book looks at Japanese HRM from a domestic perspective and as such covers the micro issues of HRM practice in Japan.

Written by a leading team of HRM experts from Japan, the UK, France, Australia and Canada, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in HRM in Japan, and international HRM more generally.

This publication sheds light on how Japan-based German firms dealt with the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in March 2011. To gather data, a questionnaire was developed and sent out in April 2012 to 244 German subsidiaries based in the Kanto area, mainly in Tokyo, with replies received from the top managers of 84 firms. In addition, the author conducted follow-up interviews with top managers of 14 of those firms in Tokyo to illuminate interesting aspects of the responses given in the questionnaires. It is shown that the overall impact on the performance of German firms was comparatively low. Those firms have now returned to normal operation and face relatively few disaster-related problems. However, firms with higher autonomy more frequently moved their offices either to the Kansai area, including Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, or at least temporarily closed down. In retrospect, the interviews made clear that relocating or suspending operations was a costly mistake. In contrast to transaction cost theory, which states that subsidiaries should be given high autonomy in such cases of emergency, it would have been better for the headquarters offices to have communicated more intensively with the management of their subsidiaries. "

Human resource management systems differ across corporations around the world. Japan has unique characteristics that create specific challenges for HRM and there is currently a lack of research focusing on Japanese HR issues available to westerners. This book examines the major challenges and dilemmas in human resource management as Japan's industrial society continues its resurgence in the global arena. The first part of the book deals with Japanese HRM from an international perspective, analysing the overall structure of Japanese HRM systems and comparing these with current international systems. The second part of this book looks at Japanese HRM from a domestic perspective and as such covers the micro issues of HRM practice in Japan. Written by a leading team of HRM experts from Japan, the UK, France, Australia and Canada, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in HRM in Japan, and international HRM more generally.