Download or read book Changing Japanese Business Economy and Society written by M. Nakamura and published by Springer. This book was released on 2004-08-31 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to regain its competitiveness, Japan is restructuring and globalizing its business and economics system, as well as other aspects of society. How it is resolving this is of huge interest to its global trading partners. With contributions from well-known North American and Japanese academics, this book discusses these issues from historical, analytical and empirical perspectives.

Download or read book The Business Reinvention of Japan written by Ulrike Schaede and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.

Download or read book Postwar Japanese Economy written by Mitsuhiko Iyoda and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the end of World War II, the Japanese economy has seen rapid changes and remarkable progress. It has also experienced a bubble economy and period of prolonged stagnation. The book seeks to address three major questions: What kind of changes have taken place in the postwar years? In what sense has there been progress? What lessons can be drawn from the experiences? The book is organized as follows: It begins with an overview of the postwar Japanese economy, using data to highlight historical changes. The four major economic issues in the postwar Japanese economy (economic restoration, rapid economic growth, the bubble economy and current topics) are addressed, with particular focus on the meaning of economic growth and the bubble economy. The next chapters examine the important economic issues for Japan related to a welfare-oriented society, including income distribution, asset distribution, and the relative share of income. Another chapter deals with the household structure of Japan, the pension issue, and the importance of the effect of demographic change on income distribution. The final chapter gives a brief summary, examines quality of life as a lesson of this research, and briefly outlines a proposal for a basic design towards achieving a high satisfaction level society. This book will be of interest to economists, economic historians and political scientists and would be useful as a text for any course on the Japanese economy.

Download or read book Japan s Politics and Economy written by Marie Söderberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For some time Japan has been under fire for adjusting too slowly to new realities. While this criticism may be valid on some levels, Japan has been transforming in tandem with both regional and global forces. However, these changes have been largely overshadowed by the immense changes in Asia; including the rise of China, the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis and North Korea's development of nuclear weapons. Has Japan, the world's second largest economy, only been muddling through? In this volume the contributors show that although the challenges faced are great, Japan is changing in areas ranging from political leadership, education policy, official development assistance, peace building and security, to defence production, business associations and innovation policy. The book analyses processes of change, focusing on the dynamics of change - rather than structural change or institutional change per se - from four levels: the individual, domestic, regional and global. Forces from outside Japan, such as a changing world order and changes in power relationships in Asia, have driven change along with pressures emerging within Japan, such as the increasing power of public opinion and competitiveness within markets. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Japanese and Asian Studies, Politics, International Relations, Globalization, Business and Economics.

Download or read book With Respect to the Japanese written by John C. Condon and published by John Murray Press. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Japan has been on center stage of the world economy for decades, interactions between the Japanese and Westerners continue to be on the rise. Daily communication in both business and social settings is commonplace, and connections through the Internet and mobile media make what felt distant only a few years ago seem familiar. Our cultures and social norms remain vastly different, however, and professionals working in Japan are likely to confront new challenges every day. For example, what are the three biggest challenges for Westerners who go to work in Japan? How can you tell when “yes” might mean “no”? When you are the guest in a taxi, who should sit where? In the fully updated second edition of With Respect to the Japanese, readers discover not only answers to basic etiquette questions, but also how to communicate successfully with the Japanese and, in the process, earn mutual respect. John C. Condon and Tomoko Masumoto use real-life examples (from kindergarten classrooms to the boardroom) to explain the contrast between these two distinct cultures. In this essential guide to Japanese culture, you will learn how vital societal characteristics affect communication, decision making, management styles and many other aspects of work and everyday relationships.

Download or read book Restructuring the Economy of the 21st Century in Japan and Germany written by Franz Schober and published by Duncker & Humblot. This book was released on 2015 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains the revised and updated versions of twelve papers which were presented at the 17th joint seminar of the faculties of economics of the Universities of Nagoya and Freiburg. The seminar took place in 1997 in Nagoya and marked the 25th anniversary of the cooperation between both faculties. The subjects of the book concentrate on long-term economic and business issues common to Japan and Germany on the turn of our century.Firstly, both countries experience continuing and interrelated problems in the labor market, budget deficits, demographic changes and the future of the social security system. Secondly, globalization, technical progress and shift of social values lead to structural changes of the economy and its institutions, particularly to deregulations and network economies. As a consequence, new ways of cooperation between firms, customers and suppliers will be established. Thirdly, the network economy changes also the inner structure and management of the companies in both countries including new organizational patterns such as the holding company or the virtual enterprise, the tight cooperation of small and medium-sized companies, human resource management and compensation.Although the broad issues in both countries - as in other mature economies - are essentially the same, the details under the surface are different and therefore ask for different solutions. The identification of these similarities and differences by theoretical and empirical methods constituted a key objective of the seminar, as well as of previous seminars.

Download or read book Japanese Political Economy Revisited written by David Chiavacci and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last 30 years, the Japanese political economy system has experienced significant changes that are usually not well understood or analysed because of their complexity and contradictions. This book provides new analyses and insights on the process of evolving Japanese political economy including Japan’s current economic policy known as Abenomics. The first three chapters looks at evolutions at the corporate level, characterised in recent years by increasing firm heterogeneity. The authors apply theoretically driven analyses to the complex subject of corporate governance, human resource management and corporate reporting by discussing new developments in context of their economic opportunities as well as of their institutional contradictions with continuities in Japanese business practices. The second group of chapters deals with institutional changes and evolving economic reforms on the macro level of political economy. The two chapters focus on the financial system regulation and economic growth policies as two central elements of Japan’s political economy and key drivers in the evolution of its economy. Their analysis allows us to better understand the interplay between reforms and change in consumption credit and to reinterpret Abenomics as a manifestation of ongoing contradictions within the Japanese political economy. The chapters were originally published in a special issue in Japan Forum.

Download or read book The History of Japanese Economic Development written by Kenichi Ohno and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-07 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an easy-to-read book that explains how and why Japan industrialized rapidly. It traces historical development from the feudal Edo period to high income and technology in the current period. Catch-up industrialization is analyzed from a broad perspective including social, economic and political aspects. Historical data, research and contesting arguments are amply supplied. Japan’s unique experience is contrasted with the practices of today’s developing countries. Negative aspects such as social ills, policy failures, military movements and war years are also covered. Nineteenth-century Japan already had a happy combination of strong entrepreneurship and relatively wise government, which was the result of Japan’s long evolutionary history. Measured contacts with high civilizations of China, India and the West allowed cumulative growth without being destroyed by them. Imported ideas and technology were absorbed with adjustments to fit the local context. The book grew out of a graduate course for government officials from developing countries. It offers a comprehensive look and new insights at Japan’s industrial path that are often missing in standard historical chronicles. Written in an accessible and lively form, the book engages scholars as well as novices with no prior knowledge of Japan.

Download or read book Social Inequality in Post Growth Japan written by David Chiavacci and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades Japan has changed from a strongly growing, economically successful nation regarded as prime example of social equality and inclusion, to a nation with a stagnating economy, a shrinking population and a very high proportion of elderly people. Within this, new forms of inequality are emerging and deepening, and a new model of Japan as 'gap society' (kakusa shakai) has become common-sense. These new forms of inequality are complex, are caused in different ways by a variety of factors, and require deep-seated reforms in order to remedy them. This book provides a comprehensive overview of inequality in contemporary Japan. It examines inequality in labour and employment, in welfare and family, in education and social mobility, in the urban-rural divide, and concerning immigration, ethnic minorities and gender. The book also considers the widespread anxiety effect of the fear of inequality; and discusses how far these developments in Japan represent a new form of social problem for the wider world.

Download or read book Japan s Lost Decade written by Naoyuki Yoshino and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-20 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses Japan’s long-term economic recession and provides remedies for that recession that are useful for other Asian economies. The book addresses why Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of its economic bubble in the 1990s. Its empirical analysis challenges the beliefs of some economists, such as Paul Krugman, that the Japanese economy is caught in a liquidity trap. This book argues that Japan’s economic stagnation stems from a vertical “investment–saving” (IS) curve rather than a liquidity trap. The impact of fiscal policy has declined drastically, and the Japanese economy faces structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. These structural problems have many causes: an aging demographic (a problem that is frequently overlooked), an over-reliance by local governments on transfers from the central government, and Basel capital requirements that have made Japanese banks reluctant to lend money to start-up businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. This latter issue has discouraged Japanese innovation and technological progress. All these issues are addressed empirically and theoretically, and several remedies for Japan’s long-lasting recession are provided. This volume will be of interest to researchers and policy makers not only in Japan but also the People’s Republic of China, many countries in the eurozone, and the United States, which may face similar challenges in the future.

Download or read book Peak Japan written by Brad Glosserman and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The post-Cold War era has been difficult for Japan. A country once heralded for evolving a superior form of capitalism and seemingly ready to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy lost its way in the early 1990s. The bursting of the bubble in 1991 ushered in a period of political and economic uncertainty that has lasted for over two decades. There were hopes that the triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011—a massive earthquake, tsunami, and accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—would break Japan out of its torpor and spur the country to embrace change that would restart the growth and optimism of the go-go years. But several years later, Japan is still waiting for needed transformation, and Brad Glosserman concludes that the fact that even disaster has not spurred radical enough reform reveals something about Japan's political system and Japanese society. Glosserman explains why Japan has not and will not change, concluding that Japanese horizons are shrinking and that the Japanese public has given up the bold ambitions of previous generations and its current leadership. This is a critical insight into contemporary Japan and one that should shape our thinking about this vital country.

Download or read book Information Technology Innovation and the Japanese Economy written by Kazunori Minetaki and published by Stanford Economics & Finance. This book was released on 2010 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion that innovation in information technology could spark a revitalization of the Japanese economy became a hot topic in 2000, and the Japanese government announced an e-Japan Strategy for creating a "knowledge emergent society" in January 2001. However, just when a consensus seemed to be emerging regarding the importance of IT innovation in Japan, the country's IT industries were deeply influenced by a recession that originated in the U.S. Although economic conditions have improved, strong IT-driven economic growth in Japan has not bounced back. Using a newly constructed set of data, this book examines how the Japanese economy has been affected by advances in information and communications technology, and whether Japan's experience with IT advancement was a short-lived bubble or part of a truly revolutionary change in the Japanese economy that will lead to long-term growth. The authors discuss similarities and differences between Japan's experience with IT innovation and that of the United States, where IT is thought to have played a major role in stimulating the economy.

Download or read book Contesting Precarity in Japan written by Saori Shibata and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contesting Precarity in Japan details the new forms of workers' protest and opposition that have developed as Japan's economy has transformed over the past three decades and highlights their impact upon the country's policymaking process. Drawing on a new dataset charting protest events from the 1980s to the present, Saori Shibata produces the first systematic study of Japan's new precarious labour movement. It details the movement's rise during Japan's post-bubble economic transformation and highlights the different and innovative forms of dissent that mark the end of the country's famously non-confrontational industrial relations. In doing so, moreover, she shows how this new pattern of industrial and social tension is reflected within the country's macroeconomic policymaking, resulting in a new policy dissensus that has consistently failed to offer policy reforms that would produce a return to economic growth. As a result, Shibata argues that the Japanese model of capitalism has therefore become increasingly disorganized.

Download or read book Princes of the Yen written by Richard Werner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eye-opening book offers a disturbing new look at Japan's post-war economy and the key factors that shaped it. It gives special emphasis to the 1980s and 1990s when Japan's economy experienced vast swings in activity. According to the author, the most recent upheaval in the Japanese economy is the result of the policies of a central bank less concerned with stimulating the economy than with its own turf battles and its ideological agenda to change Japan's economic structure. The book combines new historical research with an in-depth behind-the-scenes account of the bureaucratic competition between Japan's most important institutions: the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan. Drawing on new economic data and first-hand eyewitness accounts, it reveals little known monetary policy tools at the core of Japan's business cycle, identifies the key figures behind Japan's economy, and discusses their agenda. The book also highlights the implications for the rest of the world, and raises important questions about the concentration of power within central banks.

Download or read book Japan s Growing Technological Capability written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perspectives of technologists, economists, and policymakers are brought together in this volume. It includes chapters dealing with approaches to assessment of technology leadership in the United States and Japan, an evaluation of future impacts of eroding U.S. technological preeminence, an analysis of the changing nature of technology-based global competition, and a discussion of policy options for the United States.

Download or read book Global Economic History A Very Short Introduction written by Robert C. Allen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization. Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club of rich nations by pursuing four polices-creating a national market by abolishing internal tariffs and investing in transportation, erecting an external tariff to protect their fledgling industries from British competition, banks to stabilize the currency and mobilize domestic savings for investment, and mass education to prepare people for industrial work. Together these countries pioneered new technologies that have made them ever richer. Before the Industrial Revolution, most of the world's manufacturing was done in Asia, but industries from Casablanca to Canton were destroyed by western competition in the nineteenth century, and Asia was transformed into 'underdeveloped countries' specializing in agriculture. The spread of economic development has been slow since modern technology was invented to fit the needs of rich countries and is ill adapted to the economic and geographical conditions of poor countries. A few countries - Japan, Soviet Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps China - have, nonetheless, caught up with the West through creative responses to the technological challenge and with Big Push industrialization that has achieved rapid growth through investment coordination. Whether other countries can emulate the success of East Asia is a challenge for the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book Japan the System That Soured written by Richard Katz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After seven long years of economic malaise, it is clear that something has gone awry in Japan. Unless Japan undertakes sweeping reform, official forecasts now warn, growth will steadily dwindle. How could the world's most acclaimed economic miracle have stumbled so badly? As this important book explains, the root of the problem is that Japan is still mired in the structures, policies, and mental habits of the 1950s-1960s. Four decades ago while in the "catch-up" phase of its economic evolution, policies that gave rise to "Japan, Inc". made a lot of sense. By the 1970s and 1980s, when Japan had become a more mature economy, "catch-up economics" had become passe, even counterproductive. Even worse, in response to the oil shocks, Japan increasingly used its industrial policy tools. not to promote "winners", but to shield "losers" from competition at home and abroad. Japan's well-known aversion to imports is part and parcel of this politically understandable, but economically self-defeating, pattern. The end result is a deformed "dual economy" unique in the industrial world. Now this "dualism" is sapping the strength of the entire economy. The protection of the weak is driving Japan's most inefficient companies to invest offshore instead of at home. Without sweeping reform, real recovery will prove elusive. The challenging thesis articulated in this book is receiving widespread media attention in the United States and Japan and is sure to provoke continuing debate and controversy.