Looking
at the way a
Japanese company treats its employees, one is amazed
by the tyrant attitude of the employers and the docility
of the employees. Perhaps from the perspective of the
top management if secret agreements were not made with
university graduates, potential employees would be
snatched by competitors and unless workers work long
hours, it could cause inconvenience to the customers.
Companies have their own personnel policies that perhaps
cannot be helped from the perspective of the
economically rational choices a company makes. It is to
be admitted, though, that the labor of employees has
been treated so much like a factor of production that
the perspective of the
worker as human being and a member of family seems
to be missing.
Today,
when the corporate environment of the
contemporary society has changed so much, companies
that act with traditional rationality and perspective
miss something important. Now that incomes are rising,
available information is increasing, more
Japanese are traveling abroad and being
exposed to other cultures, freedom of choice is
expanding considerably, and the
role of women is increasing dramatically, adherence
to old human resource practice is a barrier to future
progress of the company.
The
Japanese management system afflicts a heavy cost to the
Japanese people in terms of loss of individual freedom
that may border on involuntary servitude, a
rigid
social structure, and sacrifice of other values
individual and groups may cherish but may be unable to
exercise because of the intolerance of a system that is
structurally imposed and from which escape may be all
but impossible. Another fact that is little known
outside academic circles is that the benevolence of the
Japanese management system is not bestowed on even a
majority of workers, but instead is limited to a small
minority. The large majority of workers toil for
substandard wages, work under unsafe conditions, and
account for a greater part of the
Japanese success.
Japanese
companies in their effort to cope with the new
international environment are modifying their
traditional management practice as they relate to their
employees in Japan. These changes also alter the social
contract between
Japanese workers and employers, between different
groups of workers, and between society and business.
Having unilaterally changed the terms of the social
contract,
Japanese business has unhinged these management
practices from their social mooring, further
contributing to the disequilibrium that currently
prevails in Japan. The social contract that has acted as
a binding agent is fraying. No one has yet come to grips
with the consequences of its breaking, but the prospects
are quite ominous. |
