This volume explains the salient features of the Japanese labour market. The key idea in this book is integrated segmentation. Emphasis is upon segmentation: on the demand side, within the educational system and, on supply side, monitoring costs which underlie labour contracts. Using long run official government statistical evidence, it is argued that what is peculiar to Japan is the integration of segmented labour markets. By virtue of segmentation the Japanese labour market is deeply competitive. By virtue of integration it is highly cooperative.

"Competition and Cooperation in Japanese Labour Markets" explains the salient features of the Japanese Labour Market and their evolution through time. The key idea is integrated segmentation: on the demand side, within the educational system; on the supply side, through the type of labour contracts binding workers to firms and firms to workers. Demand and supply-side segmentation exists in a number of countries. Peculiar to Japan is the way demand and supply segmentation overlap and the muting of the wage and income differentials which segmentation generates. Being segmented on both supply and demand sides as it is, the Japanese labour market is highly competitive; however, because it is also integrated, cooperation is also deeply rooted within it.

Using detailed case studies with statistical analysis In Search of Economic Success assesses comparatively the `market liberal' belief in free markets, limited government and the trade-off between economic efficiency and social justice. Kenworthy argues that the key to economic success lies in combining competition with cooperation. Among advanced industrialized nations, the countries achieving the best economic performance results over the past three decades have been the most committed to combining competition and cooperation. Those faring worst rely predominantly on atomistic, individualistic competition. In the end, the comparative record strongly supports a focus on cooperation-inducing institutions.

Management, Motivation, economic development, Japan - productivity, cultural factors, labour relations, management attitude in Japan and in the USA, financial aspects, production diversification, production management, market, competition, industrial policy, economic planning. References, statistical tables.

Japanese scholars have begun to challenge conventional wisdom about effective labor organizing, and Ikuo Kume has written the first book in English to advance their controversial theory. Since at least the early 1980s, the power of organized labor has weakened in most advanced industrial countries. The decline of organized labor has coincided with the decentralization of labor-management relations. As a result, most observers assume that decentralized labor is destined to lose power in a capitalist economy, and that enterprise unions will tend to be docile and powerless. Kume documents the one notable exception. The Japanese trade union confederation has steadily grown in importance, expanding its scope beyond individual companies to national policy making. Kume traces the achievements of enterprise unionism in private firms. Labor, he argues, slowly gained legitimate corporate membership by establishing joint institutions with management. By the 1960s, labor-management councils, stimulated by foreign competition, had become a widespread feature of Japanese industry. Soon unions were regular participants in the government deliberation councils and in the information exchange that shaped policy when inflation hit the Japanese economy. The unions had become a full partner by the 1980s and were crucially involved in the 1993 defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party after thirty-eight years of rule.

The flow of goods, capital technology and organisational know-how between Japan and China has increased dramatically, yet the relationship between the two countries remains far below its potential scope. The differing economic structures of the two countries, the mutual political distrust and the burden of an unsettled historical past stand in the way of a more intensive economic integration. This book combines up to date research from the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) with papers from a conference organised jointly with the Fujitsu Research Institute (FRI) and is an essential tool for academics and those doing business in East Asia.

Opinions about industrial relations (IR) in Japan are extremely diversified. The main concern regarding IR appears to be whether Japan can maintain the vitality and flexibility to cope with the changes in the industrial structure and technology in a stagnant world economy. The lack of opposition and dispute between labor and management may be the most important feature for summarizing labor-management relations in modern Japan when making international comparisons. Hypotheses for understanding Japanese IR have been postulated in regard to the following: unintended consequences, homogeneous structure, business community of management and labor, global competition and the needs for flexibility, adaptability in competitive markets, and transformation of the paradigm of IR. The historical development of labor relations in Japan shows a spirit of cooperation. By any measurement of cooperation, labor-management cooperation is strongest in Japan. A special feature of the corporate structure is management's role as referee between the employees and the stockholders. Other features include a continuous path of promotion, firm-specific training, built-in wage-profit system, and transit members of unions. A typical system for mutual communication is the "labor-management consultation system." In the future, unions must minimize adverse effects of competition among rival companies, individualization, and fragmentation of IR. (Appendixes include 25 references and a chronological table of IR in Japan.) (YLB)