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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ReproducedReproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. WHAT MAKES "SALARYMEN" RIJN?:

A MECHANISM FOR ACCEPTANCE OF LONG WORKING HOURS BY JAPANESE WORKERS

Junri Sakurai

submitted to the Faculty of the School of International Serv ice of The American University in Partial Fulfillment o f the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in International Communication

Signatures of Committee:

Chair:

Dean of the School

D ate / itri

TEE ilflEBICAN 0HIVZT:::r: '.IZHAHY

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WHAT MAKES ’’SALARYMEN" RUN?: A MECHANISM FOR ACCEPTANCE OF LONG WORKING HOURS BY JAPANESE WORKERS

Junri Sakurai

ABSTRACT

Average annual working hours of Japanese workers are 100 to 500 hours more than their counterparts in other developed countries. This habit of working long hours has attracted strong concern: it is said to be a cause of karoshi, or death from

overwork; furthermore, it is recognized as a source of Japanese "unfair" competitiveness as well as a negative effect of Japanese-style management. This paper inquires into the reasons why such a habit has long been accepted. As a main research method, past scholarly works are surveyed and analyzed. This analysis shows that economic and management studies have focused on "coerced” overwork, while some sociological and cultural explanations can be applicable to "voluntary" overwork. In order to explain quasi-voluntary overworking, an alternative approach with an emphasis on the psychology of workers is taken in this paper.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface...... I

1. What is the problem of Japanese working long hours? ...... 4 1) Facts: long working hours indicated by labor statistics ...... 4 2) Problem definition: why is working long hours a problem? ...... 8 3) "Coercive" and "voluntary" aspects of the problem ...... 13

2. Economic approaches ...... 18 1) Legal aspects and problems of the social welfare system ...... 18 2) Systems and management technologies of Japanese-style management ...... 22 3) Weakness of economic approaches ...... 30

3. Cultural and sociological approaches...... 36 1) Cultural approach: Confucianism and high-context culture ...... 37 2) Sociological approach: Contextualism and feminism ...... 43 3) Weakness of cultural and sociological approaches ...... 51

4. An alternative approach ...... 55 1) "Voluntary" working derived from willingness to work ...... 55 2) To "enjoy" working...... 59 3) A "flow" model of Japanese-style management ...... 69 4) Characteristics of the Japanese system ...... 76 5) Sources of "hidden" coercion ...... 82

Conclusion ...... 88 Appendix ...... 91

Bibliography ...... 101

iii

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[Chapter 1] Chart 1-1: Trends in Annual Working Hours in Japan ...... 91 Table 1-2: International Comparison of Working Hours Etc ...... 92 Table 1-3: Weekly Total Hours Worked in Japan ...... 93 (Manufacturing, Production Workers) Table 1-4: Annual Workdays and Holidays ...... 94 (Manufacturing, Production Workers, 1991) Table 1-5: International Comparison of Time Spent in Commuting ...... 95 (Proportion of Workers [%]) Table 1-6: Changes and Differences in Time Spent in Commuting ...... 96 According to the Population Size of Cities (Weekdays Average)

[Chapter 2] Table 2-1: Issues/Problems Between Unions and Managements and ...... 97 How Well Unions Deal with Them

[Chapter 3] Chart 3-1: International Comparison of "Work Centrality" (1 ) ...... 98 (Allocation of 100 Points among Five Areas of Life) Chart 3-2: International Comparison of "Work Centrality" (2 ) ...... 99 (Grading According to Seven Ranks) Chart 3-3 : Changes in Work Centrality Points of Males According to 100 Age (Points Allocated to Work among Five Areas of Life)

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Figure 4- L: Model of the Flow State ...... 63 Figure 4-2: Two Ways of Experiencing Flow ...... 65 Figure 4-3: Model of Autotelic (Flow) Work...... 70

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE

------"Every morning on the way to the workplace, I used to ask myself what sort

of kaizen (improvements in job procedures) I should try today. Without such affirmative thinking, working-time in the kaisha (company) would feel longer." — A senior worker working for Toyota.1 ------In 1991, "Kokumin-Seikatsu-Shingikai Chuukan-houkoku" (an interim report

by a governmental committee) defined kaisha-ningen (company-man) as follows:

those who devote themselves to working hard, believing that to join the promotion race means self-achievement and, furthermore, that the organization could not work without them.2

The Japanese work hard: looking at the Ministry of Labor figures,3 yearly average working-hours of Japanese workers reached 2432 hours in 1960, which was the longest after World War n. The figure fell until 1975, when it again began to

increase. Although the statistics show that working hours have been reduced since 1988, the Japanese still work 100 to 500 hours more than other industrialized

‘Nakazawa Takao, '"Te no Shigoto' wo Dcita Hito-tachi," Economist VoL70 No. 32 (21 July 1992): 28.

2Kashima Takashi. Otoko no Zahyo Jiku (Tokyo: I wan ami Shinsho,1993), 46.

3Japan Ministry of Labor, "Monthly Labor Survey."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. countries' people. With the issue o f karoshi and the criticism, from other countries about social dumping, this problem of working long hours has become an important political issue. In June 1991, Editt Kresson, who was then the French Prime Minister,

made a sarcastic remark, saying that the Japanese worked like ants. This remark

implied that Japanese people lived in small apartments located far from workplaces

and paid a higher cost of living than people in other countries. It is certain that the

Japanese are overworking in the sense that more work is rather reducing their sense of fulfillment and aggravating environmental pollution. It can be said, though, that quite a

few Japanese workers would feel repelled by the above-mentioned remark, feeling that working like ants is not a matter for criticism by others. For the Japanese, working

long hours has meant, at least before the criticism from other countries, a good attitude toward life which should rather be respected, not criticized, by others. An important issue to be discussed here is how such overworking has become

popular in Japanese society. Are Japanese companies responsible, for example, as they

have forced workers to work long hours? Or is the phenomena merely the result of voluntary hard-working by workers? The same kind of discussion has arisen over the

issue of small-group activities in Japanese companies. Many scholars assert that workers are "coerced" to join such activities as kaizen. However, it is true that

workers experience working time as "shorter" when they constantly think of good ideas through kaizen. This sort of long-hours working tends to bring about a sense of fulfillment rather than fatigue. That's why workers are often so absorbed in working

hard that they forget all about the time. Japanese-style management has created such working conditions, offering workers a "raison d'etre" and a sense of solidarity. This

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. positive aspect of Japanese-style management should not be ignored4 when analyzing the problem of long-hours working.

This paper intends to shed light upon the aspect of voluntary devotion of

workers to hard work, with the focus on their psychology which has not been analyzed enough in past research. The following questions are to be answered: How does the

Japanese management system form, change, and manipulate workers' attitudes and work ethics? How have the social structure and norms of Japanese society influenced

the way workers work? The negative aspect of the Japanese style management, which

has generated a sort of coercive overworking, is not to be negated. However, without probing into the reasons for workers' voluntary hard work, this argument would reach the conclusion that a reduction in working time is advisable. Such a quantitative

solution of the problem would not guarantee a perfect solution in terms of quality; reducing working time would not necessarily bring about a "more humane" working

life. The quality of work, as well as that of leisure time, should be improved; the most important question is what is the essence of human and humane working conditions.

4As will be analyzed later in this paper, the "voluntary" aspect of the problem has often been ignored or dealt with as of secondary importance. (For example, see Tabata Minoru, "Gendai Kigyo no Kachi Ishiki kozo," in Kigyo Moral wo Tetsugaku sum, ed. Osaka Tetsugaku Gakko (Tokyo: San'ichi-shobo, 1988).)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM OF

JAPANESE WORKING LONG HOURS?

1) Facts: long working hours indicated by labor statistics To begin with, how long is Japanese working time? Chart 1-1 in the Appendix shows average yearly effective working hours of Japanese workers. After reaching

2432 hours in total in 1960, which was the longest after World War n, the working hours fell during the period of high economic growth in the 1960s and the 1970s.

After 1975, however, it began to increase and continued to do so during the 1980s. It was in 1990 when the working-hours again fell below the figure for 1975. These ups

and downs of Japanese working hours contrast with those of European nations where

a rapid working time reduction has been achieved since the latter half of the 1970s, a period of severe recession and unemployment. In Japan, the same recession5 was overcome in a quite different way; under the name of genryou-keiei (streamline

management), companies cut labor-costs by increasing the ratio of part-time workers, female ones in particular, and by increasing the overtime mainly of male workers6. The change in Japanese working time reflects such company strategies: the increase in

5Needless to say, this recession was due to the oil crisis.

6Morioka Koji, "Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai to Rodo Jikan Kozo no Nikyoku- ka," in Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai no Kozo, ed. Kiso Keizai Kagaku Kenkyu-sho (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1992).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. overtime has been the main reason for the increase in yearly working hours since 197S.

In recent years, working-hours have been reduced. One reason for this is government policy, and another is the influence of recession after the collapse of the so-called bubble economy7.

In an international comparison, Japanese working time has been longer than that of other industrialized countries. As Table 1-2 (Appendix) shows, the average

effective yearly working-hours of other countries, such as 1943 hours in the U.S.,

1902 hours in Great Britain, 1682 hours in France, and 1582 hours in Germany, are 100 to 500 hours shorter than those of Japan, 2080 hours in 1991s. As is shown in Table 1-3 (Appendix), it was in 1991 when the average weekly working hours of the

Japanese reached 40 hours, which had been achieved by 1975 in most Western countries. Moreover, Japanese paid annual holidays are much less (Table 1-4 in

Appendix). In 1993, the average figure of holidays given9 was 16.1 days, only 56.1% of which (9.0 days) was actually taken10. As these data indicate, it is apparent that

Japanese workers have worked more and have rested less. Based on an estimate of

'Japan experienced the bubble economy from 1987 until 1991, when it collapsed. It had started with the introduction of an extremely low official discount rate of 2.5 %, which led to a large amount of speculative land buying.

8This figure (2080 hours) is calculated as an average for enterprises with 5 or more regular workers, while the above-mentioned figures of "the Monthly Labor Survey" are based on data from enterprises with 30 or more regular workers.

9In Japan, workers are given different numbers of holidays based on seniority and other qualifications. 6 days is the legal minimum.

10Japan Ministry of Labor ed., 1994 General Survey on Wages and Working Hours System. 27.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. lifetime working hours, the Japanese work more than 100 thousand hours, about 60% more than the Americans and the French, who work about 76 thousand hours''. Furthermore, it is often pointed out that the actual gap between Japan and the

Western countries is much bigger than indicated by the statistics. There are several reasons for this. First, definitions and methods of data calculation are different among countries. According to statistician Hiroshi Yokomoto, Japanese working hours

shown in DLO labor statistics are shorter than the real figures. For example, in

computing weekly effective working hours, paid annual holidays and paid leaves are included as working-hours in the case of the U.S. and Germany, while Japanese

statistics exclude even intermission hours as well as waiting hours12.

The second "flaw" in the statistics is that they do not take account of unpaid - working hours. In Japan saabisu-zangyo (service overtime) or unpaid overtime,

n Fujimoto Takeshi, Nihon no Rodosha (Tokyo: Shinnihon Shuppan-sha, 1990), 33.

12Yokomoto Hiroshi, "Nihon no Rodo Jikan no Nagasa Mijikaku Miseru DLO Toukei," Asahi Shinhun (29 January 1989), 14. Besides, Japanese data shown in international statistics like ILO labor statistics exclude figures regarding enterprises with less than 30 workers. By contrast, the U.S. and Great Britain have no exclusions while Germany and France include data regarding enterprises with more than 10 workers. Moreover, there are several other defects or weaknesses in the statistics. For example, the data represent the "average" situation of workers from various industries, varying both in age and sex. It would be better to compare particular segments, such as average working hours of "white-collar workers," "male workers" and so on. The difference by sex is especially important. In some countries, including Japan, the difference between the average working hours of female workers and those of males is very big, while in other countries it is not. In Japan, overtime working by females is limited by the labor law. Such a difference by sex results in the "bipolarization" of working hours: the number of males who work extremely long hours is increasing, while it is decreasing for females. Therefore, the average working hours may not well represent the real situation of Japanese male workers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. whereby workers donate overtime to the company by not recording it on their time cards, has been very common. Service overtime includes such kinds of working as follows: preparations before starting time; a cut in intermission hours; inokori or

staying in the office while not formally working overtime; "takeout" working which is often called furoshiki overtime or floppy overtime13; working on holidays; and other

unpaid activities including quality control activities, shop meetings, and on-the-job

training, ha estimating these unpaid overtime working hours, "Labor Force Survey" data prepared by the Mangement and Coordination Agency are effective (Chart 1-1 in

Appendix). While "Monthly Labor Survey" data by the Ministry of Labor come from

employer responses, "Labor Force Survey" is based upon employee responses,

reflecting actual working hours including unpaid hours. It can be estimated, therefore, that gaps between these two different data indicate approximate service overtime

hours; there have been some 340 hours unpaid overtime hours during the latter half of the 1970s and the 1980s.

Besides, there is another type of unpaid overtime other than "formal" working.

There are half-formal and half-informal socializing activities among workers, i.e., such events as athletic meets, hiking trips, recreational trips, drinking and playing mahjong after work, and playing golf games on holidays. Such activities, called "gray activities"

by Christoph Deutschmann14, should be included in working activities in a broader

13Furoshiki overtime literally means "wrapping cloth overtime" and the "floppy" of floppy overtime refers to a floppy disk. Japanese workers often take their tasks home in the form of "wrapping cloths" or "floppy disks" so as not to have them recorded as overtime.

14Christoph Deutschmann, "The Worker-Bee Syndrome in Japan: An Analysis of Working-Time Practices," in Working Time in Transition: The Political Economy of Working Hours in Industrial Nations, eds. Karl Hinrichs, William Roche, and Carmen Sirianni (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 200.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sense. In analyzing the issue of Japanese working long hours, the existence of gray activities which play an important role in forming and maintaining good human

relationships in offices is an important point15. Thirdly, commuting hours must not be ignored in that an average of over one

hour's "commuters' hell" makes working more painful Average commuting time for the Tokyo and Osaka areas is 92 minutes and 80 minutes respectively, while in other developed countries about 50% of workers spend less than 15 minutes commuting

(Table 1-5 in Appendix). Based on these statistics, it is assumed that "the gap in

annual total hours spent related to work is about 1000 hours,"16 including commuting

hours.

2) Problem definition: Why is working long hours a problem? There are three main factors which have made the problem of Japanese working long hours an international as well as a domestic issue of importance. First, and the

most important factor, is that Japanese people have begun to think about the quality of

L5Last year a Japanese manufacturing company released an in-company notice which warned of "excessive" socializing activities. The notice shows how "gray" gray activities are. It goes, "Although the company does not intend to meddle in the private activities of workers, behavior that lowers morale and hurts the image of the company should be punished." The notice further calls for "moderate behavior _ with a clear line between official and private matters," stating that: You should not force your subordinates and peers (females in particular) to drink with you until midnight. Even though you intend to promote friendship or show your appreciation for them, your behavior could make them feel "forced" to join socializing activities. Managers, therefore, not only should draw a clear line between official and private hours but also should supervise subordinates.

16Ryu ShokichL Gendai Nihon Keizai no Kenkyu (Tokyo: Gakubun-sha, 1994), 92.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. their affluence, the negative side of which is symbolized by the karoshi phenomenon17. While Japan has achiev ed tremendous economic success, people cannot really feel that

they are affluent, with poor housing conditions, anxiety about life after retirement and long working hours. This contradiction can be called "nation's affluence at the expense of people's sense of affluence."18 It should rather be recognized that the nation's

affluence has been achieved because the people have accepted such long hours working and other poor living conditions. In this sense, the peculiarity of Japanese

rapid economic growth and that of Japanese long hours working "share the same

roots."19 The problem of karoshi appeared in the 1970s and people have begun to pay attention to it since 1988; in this year, the karoshi hotline was established as a nation

wide network and it has been repeatedly mentioned in both national and international

17Karoshi is death from overwork. Kawahito Hiroshi quotes its defintion in more professional terms as formulated by Dr. Uehata Tetsunojo of the National Institute of Public Health as follows: rat is a "condition in which psychologically unsound work processes are allowed to continue in a way that disrupts the worker's normal work and life rhythms, leading to a build-up of fatigue in the body and a chronic condition of overwork accompanied by a worsening of preexistent high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries and finally resulting in a fatal breakdown." Specific diseases include subarachnoidal hemorrhage, cerebral hemorrhage, heart failure, myocardial infarction, cerebral thrombus/infarction and others. See the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi ed., Karoshi: When the "Corporate Warrior" Dies (Tokyo: Mado-sha, 1990), 8 and 98-99.

18Teruoka Yoshiko, Yutakasa towa Nanika (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1989), 105.

19Watanabe Osamu, "Yutakana Shakai" Nihon no Kozo (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1990), 12.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. media20 since then. In 1991, a government report referred to the problem in connection with the Japanese life-style:

A traditional Japanese management style where production schedules and achievement of quotas have been given priority has been a cause of stress and fatigue of employees, generating physical disorders and sudden deaths.21

In this report, it is noted that karoshi occurred in a total of 33 cases in 1990. But this figure only counts the cases where workers' karoshi was compensated. In fact, it was

only 5% of the 597 cases in which claims were made. If we add other cases which

have not even been the subject of claims22, it can be said that the official figure does not reveal the truth.

20Karoshi Hotlines were opened by lawyers and doctors in seven major urban centers around Japan (Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Fukuoka) on June 18, 1988. After the establishment in the first seven locations, the program has spread to other localities throughout the country as well as New York and Brussels. The Hotline provides consultation about karoshi-related issues such as workers' compensation insurance and so on. In October 1988, the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi was established which routinely works on the issue. _

21 Japan Economic Planning Agency, Bureau of National Life ed., Kojin Seikatsu Yuusen Shakai wo Mezashite (Tokyo: the Ministry of Finance, the Printing Bureau, 1991), 24.

22 According to the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, 2474 cases of consultations were phoned into the Karoshi Hotline in the first two years (from 1989 to 1991). Among them, 1856 cases were inquiries about worker's compensation, including 1250 cases of death, hi fact, the Ministry of Labor, which administers workers' compensation insurance, rarely recognizes claims for the payment. The present administrative formula provides that compensation be awarded if there was an excessive burden in comparison to the worker's usual specified work load over the one-week period preceding collapse. Compared with the initial coverage formula before October 1987, the present formula actually relaxes the standards in the way that it extended the period to be examined from one day to one week. However, the current standards are still insufficient because "[fjatigue accumulates over periods - longer than one week," and "in many cases the employee's 'specified work load' in itself may be excessive." [National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi ed.,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The second factor which has made the problem an important issue is increasing

criticism from other nations. Since the end of the 1970s, European nations and others have claimed that the working of long hours in Japan is the cause of unfair competitiveness of the country's economy. Following the famous claim made by EC in

1979, that "Japanese are workaholics living in rabbit hutches," was a statement

announced at the Work Summit in May 1986, "Reducing working hours is the most urgent matter of Japan." "The World Labour Report," an annual report of the ELO

published in June 1993, also took up the problem, referring to the fact that Japanese

working hours were much more than the official statistics show because of unpaid "service overtime"23. By the mid- 1980s, the Japanese government began to take the

matter seriously under external pressure, Le., that exerted by an economic conflict with the U.S. A government report, the so-called "Maekawa Report24," encouraged the reduction of working hours so as to stimulate private consumption25. Another

Karoshi: When the "Corporate Warrior" Pies. 93] In the latter cases, those who have a "usual" heavy work load would find it more difficult to be awarded compensation.

23Intemational Labour Office, I.L.O. World Labour Report (Geneva: I.L.O., 1993), 67.

24The Advisory Group on Structural Economic Adjustment for International Harmony, ed., The Maekawa Report (7 April 1986). The Maekawa Report was made by the Maekawa Committee, an advisory group which was organized at the request of Prime Minister Nakasone in October 1985. The committee was to study medium- and long-term policy measures dealing with Japan’s economic and social structure in a changing international environment. The formal name of the report is "the Report of the Advisory Group on Structural Economic Adjustment for International Harmony," submitted to Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro on April 7, 1986.

25Ibid. The report recommended that: The total working hours per year should be brought into line with the industrialized countries of Europe and North America in the private sector, and early realization of the five-day work week should be pursued. At the same time, efforts should be made for speedy implementation of these policies in the public

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. government report, "the Shin-Maekawa Report," again made the same kind of recommendations. The latter proposed the following goals: reducing total annual

working hours to some 1800 hours "as soon as possible before the year 2000"; diffiision of the five-day work week; increasing and promoting active use of annual

paid leaves; and the promotion of consecutive paid leaves. The problem of long

working hours has become an unavoidable econo-political issue as economic friction

has become more intense. Finally, the third factor is an academic interest in Japanese-style management:

the problem of working long hours has often been recognized as a negative aspect of the management style. While there is a perspective that recognizes the management style as one model of "after-Fordism," another important academic focus has been to analyze strains, such as the habit of working long hours, which have been generated

through the management implementation. Some foreign scholars and journalists maintain that such a working style evidences the "uniqueness" of the Japanese and

Japanese society. For example, Karel van Wolfren, well-known as a Japan revisionist26,

asserts that "salarymen" or those Japanese workers who are extremely loyal to

and financial sectors. ["The Maekawa report," in Inside the Japanese System: Readings on Contemporary Society and Political Economy, eds. Daniel I. Okimoto and Thomas P. Rohlen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 253.]

26 Japan revisionists are those scholars and journalists who assert that even though Japan is a capitalist nation, it has its own rules, norms and ethics which are different from Western ones. The following four writers are representative: Karel van Wolfren, Clyde Prestwitz, James Fallows and Chalmars Johnson. In Japan, it was recognized that they gave a theoretical background to the "Japan bashing" movement.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. companies are raised through the implementation of the Japanese management style and are integrated into "the Japan system."27 He mentions that

[S]alarymen are expected to actively express their loyalty to the company. The most general way to do this is to spend time together with peers until midnight.28

This point of view of Wolfren is one answer to "the Japan problem,"29 which tries to

analyze the "unique" and "mysterious" nation where people still live in rabbit hutches,

commute to kaisha (corporation) by jam-packed commuter trains and work over 2000

hours per year, even though Japan has become one of the most "affluent" nations in the world. Showing new perspectives on long working hours and over-working

problem is a way of giving an answer to the Japan problem.

3) "Coercive" and "voluntary" aspects of the problem The background of the problem can be expressed briefly as follows: Japan has

registered remarkable economic achievements and the living standard of the people has been on a par with the advanced nations of Europe and North America.

Nevertheless, Japanese workers, without a sense of affluence, have continued to work

27Karel van Wolfren, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Vintage- Books, 1990).

28 Ibid., 162.

29If we take the Western point of view, Japan might have certain "unique" and "mysterious" aspects. Okui asserts that the Japan problem concerns how to analyze and solve such "problems" as can only be recognized when the Japanese take the standpoints of other people. The problem of working long hours is a typical "Japan problem" in this sense. Cf. Okui TomoyuM, Nihon Mondai: "Kiselri" kara "Kyoi" e (Tokyo: Chuo Koron-sha, Chuko Shinsho, 1994).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. extremely long hours, which causes karoshi and criticism from abroad against the

accumulated wealth. The real problem, therefore, is not the mere length of working hours but the fact that it is "excessive" over-working. More work would not

necessarily bring about positive outcomes such as more benefit and a higher standard

of living. On the contrary, more work would generate strains in society like karoshi Today's production activities, which are supported by such long working hours cause

environmental disruption. Aquisition of surplus money has caused economic friction. Thus work these days, having reached "the point at which any more increment would rather decrease pleasure and increase pain," is overwork in that:

[i]t has already exceeded the level where primary objectives for working would be served. In other words, today’s work is excessive because work as a means does not serve its own ends.30

A main theme of this paper is why such overworking has occurred in Japan and

has been crystalized as the problem of working long hours. One important proposition

to be thought about is whether this is a sort of "coercive" overwork forced by some systems and institutions which are unique to Japan, or whether it is "voluntary" overwork by Japanese workers. Though there are workers who feel obliged to work long hours, "not a few workers are proud of their job and therefore they become more and more absorbed in the job."31 The reason why Japanese workers' overworking is hard to settle is that such working of long hours is often derived from their voluntary

or affirmative will to work. This aspect of voluntary overwork is evidenced in the fact

30Sugimura Yoshimi, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika f Kyoto: Minerva-shobo, 1990), 3.

3'National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, 26-27.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that so-called "service overtime" does not always result from rulings and regulations by the management but from workers' self-restraint in reporting overtime work. An interview survey by a Japanese scholar Kawai shows that workers often refrain from

reporting real amounts of overtime for such reasons as follows: some workers recognize that the overtime arose because they could not handle the job well; some

want to pretend to themselves that they are doing the job without difficulty; others try

to protect their own interests in the future such as promotion32. Here we can see "companies which expect workers' self-restraint on the one hand, and workers who

accept such expectations to a certain extent on the other."33

This entanglement of coerced and voluntary aspects of overworking has been argued over by many scholars, most of whom emphasize that the "voluntary" working in this context is not really voluntary. For example, Saito Shigeo points out that there exist "motivation which has been set inside workers' minds," and "a mechanism which

alters them into worker-bees." Using the phrase "voluntary will (for working) extrinsically set," he further asserts that "hidden coercion appears as such voluntary

will."34 As Saito states, it is certain that Japanese working long hours has been generated and promoted by the "hidden coercion" of the management, and in this

32Kawai Ryusuke, "Service Zangyo no Jittai to Sono Shakai-teki Haikei," in Datsu Service Zangyo Shakai, eds. Honda Junryo and Morioka Koji (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1993).

33Ibid., 40. Kawai asserts that there are two reasons for service overtime which are combined in a subtle way: one reason is that companies set some regulations such as an overtime ceiling; another is that workers voluntarilly refrain from reporting actual overtime.

34Carles Douglas Lummis and Saito Shigeo, Naze Nihoqjm wa Shmu hodo Hataraku nodesuka? (Tokyo: Iwanami Booklet Vol. 198, June 1991), 8.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sense, the voluntary will should be seen as pseudo-voluntary, not from the bottom of

their heart. Therefore, it is important to analyze Japanese institutions and systems as the environment that "extrinsically sets" workers' minds toward voluntary overworking. However, this subject should be analyzed more organically with an emphasis on

the aspect of voluntary wQl; in order to approach the essence of the problem, we must probe into the conditions whereby "not a few workers replace coercion with voluntary

will, trying to win the promotion race."35 What work ethics and sense of values do the

Japanese workers have? And how do such ethics and sense of values, combined with

working conditions and structures of Japanese corporations, affect the degree of overworking? By answering such questions, we should try to analyze the quality of

work itself in Japanese corporations. In order to substantially resolve the problem, work ethics and sense of values regarding work as well as leisure should be changed in some way. If reducing working hours "only moves the border between work-time and leisure-time, the situation would not be improved."36 Kawahito Hiroshi, Chairman of

the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, also maintains that it is

necessary to analyze "a correlation between institutions and individuals, and between

corporations and individuals" with a focus on individuals' hearts and minds. The reason is:

It is each individual who changes the status-quo in corporations, social institutions and systems. Without seeking directions for changing the hearts and

35Honda Junryo, "Chingin Keitai, Rodo Jikan Housei to Service Zangyo," in Datsu Service Zangyo Shakai, eds. Honda Junryo and Morioka Koji (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1993), 92.

36Sugimura Yoshimi, '"Jitan' wo Kangaeru (Ge): Kachi Miezu Balance Ushinau; Henka e Shinken-na Kaiwa ga Ifitsuyo," Asahi Shmhun (19 March 1992), 13.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. minds of individuals, any idea of changing the "corporate society" would be nothing but pie in the sky.37

37Kawahito Hiroshi, "Service Zangyo wo Nakusuru tameni," in Datsu Service Zangyo Shakai, eds. Honda Junryo and Morioka Koji (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo- sha, 1993), 187.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 2

ECONOMIC APPROACHES

In Japan, the problem of working long hours has been studied mainly by

economists. As Japanese-style management with its universality and peculiarity has attracted considerable attention, many analyses of the correlation between working long hours and management style have been attempted. Summarized briefly, these

arguments tend to emphasize the "coercive" aspect of the problem In this chapter, such arguments in the field of economics are analyzed, roughly divided into the following two levels: Part I of the chapter gives national level factors such as legal

problems and social welfare systems; Part II deals with corporation level factors like structure and management technologies comprising Japanese-style management. The

final part of the chapter examines the shortcomings and weaknesses of the economic

approaches. It seems that other approaches which come to grips with the "voluntary" aspect are needed, especially from the perspectives of workers' ethics and psychology.

1) Legal aspects and problems of the social welfare system In Italy and Spain, "workers are compelled to reduce their worktime under laws which provide that workers not only have a right to take weekly holidays and

annual paid leaves, but cannot renounce the right'."38 In comparison with such nations,

38Abo Tetsuo, Shibagaki Kazuo and Kawai Masahiro, Nichibei-Kankei no Kozu: Sougo-izon to Masatsu (Kyoto: Minerva-shobo, 1992), 197.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Japanese labor laws are lenient so that companies can easily force workers to work long hours. There are several legal "loopholes" and flaws in Japanese labor laws. First of all, the Labor Standards Act lacks adequate regulations on overtime work. Article 36 of the law provides that employers can order overtime work under the following

two conditions: one condition is an agreement with the majority union, or with the

representative of the majority of employees in case of absence of the majority union;

the other condition is submission of the agreement to the Labor Standards Inspection Office. Under this provision, employers virtually can extend daily worktime without

legal restrictions if they can reach an agreement with the majority of employees39. . Secondly, in order to reduce overtime work, the extra pay rate should be raised. The former provisions of the Labor Standards Act, which had been effective since

April, 1988, provided that employers should pay above 25% of the ordinary wage rate as extra for overtime work, holiday work and night work. As a result, most enterprises set the rate at 25%, the legal minimum rate. In comparison, in other advanced nations, the rate is 50% for overtime and 100% for holiday and night work. In Great Britain,

the rate is 200% for working on national holidays. Although this problem of low extra pay has been pointed out even by an administrative committee40, the amendment of the Act in April 1994, did no more than set the range of the rate between 25% and 50%41.

39This sort of agreement is usually called "36 ( saburoku) agreement" since it is based on Article 36 of the Labor Standards Act.

40An interim report by the Economic Planning Agency, Kojin-Seikatsu Yuusen-Shakai wo Mezashite (November 1991), pointed out that: The current extra pay rate for overtime is so low that enterprises tend to prefer increasing overtime to increasing personnel and, as a result, impede worktime reduction, (p.49)

4IThe extra pay rate for working on holidays was raised to 35%. The rates for overtime and night work are to be set between 25% and 50% by government

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Thirdly, under the current amended Act, even though the legal weekly working hours are reduced from 44 hours to 40 hours, exceptions and deferments are still retained42. The amended Act also lacks adequate regulations on "flexible work-hour"

and so-called "estimated work-hour" systems. Flexible work-hour tends to provide

room for "service overtime" since it is difficult for workers to precisely understand the

complex calculation of the range of overtime and the commencement of work hours.

Therefore, flexible work-hour should be allowed only for limited kinds of workers, and with the condition that only a short period be set as a calculation term43. Another problem concerns workers who engage in "discretionary work," i.e., work which largely depends on workers' discretion44. In the case of employees engaging in

ordinances. According to a test calculation by Morioka Koji, the extra pay rate should be 75% in order for the extra pay to actually be 25% of the ordinary wage rate. The reason is that the ordinary wage rate implied by Article 37 of the Labor Standards Act does not include indirect wages and bonus. [Morioka Koji, "Rodo Jikan to Ninge Seikatsu," in Rodo Jikan no Keizai-gaku. ed. Kiso Keizai Kagaku Kenkyu-sho (Tokyo: Aoki-shoten, 1987), 56-57]

42The backwardness of the Japanese labor administration is signified by the fact that more than 30 years have passed since the DLO adopted a recommendation of a 40-hour workweek in 1962. There are many other examples. Japan was included in the five nations, out of a hundred and more nations, which opposed the adoption of "Annual Paid Holiday Treaty" by the ILO in 1970. In 1985, an ILO study revealed that the number of annual paid holidays for Japanese workers was the second lowest in 145 nations, next to the Phillippines. Furthermore, the Japanese legal provision which allows workers to separately (not consequtively) take the annual paid holidays violates the ILO Treaty (C£ Fujimoto Takeshi, Nihon no Rodosha, 1990).

43There are four different flexible work-hour systems allowed by the Labor Standards Act: 1) Flexible work-hour system within a period of one month, 2) Flexible work-hour system within a period of 3 months, 3) Non-definite flexible work-hour system with a period of one week and 4) Flextime system

44A Ministry Ordinance lists the following examples as discretionary work: research and development of new commodities or new technology, analyzing or planning information systems, collecting materials for articles and editing, work of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. discretionary work, as well as those who work outside the office, the workers are assumed to work the hours stipulated by the labor-managcment agreement, because it is difficult for an employer to manage and control their working hours under his

direction. Since the workers are regarded as having worked normal working hours, there is no room for the concept of overtime. Service overtime, therefore, tends to be

generated under such a structure45.

In addition to the above-mentioned flaws of the Labor Standards Act, the Japanese social welfare system also has some weakness. Juliet Schor, who analyzes a

recent upward trend in American workers' working hours, refers to American and

Japanese social welfare systems which heavily depend for their resources on the private sector, in comparison with European nations where the welfare cost is mainly financed by the government sector. In the U.S., as well as in Japan, employers share social welfare expenses by providing employees with additional benefits other than wages, such as health insurance expenses, pension contributions and so on. Hence,

enterprises tend to increase working hours per employee instead of increasing the number of regular employees which would result in paying additional benefits. In short,

under the social welfare system which depends for its cost on the private sector,

designers, producers or directors.

45Honda, "Chingin Keitai, Rodo Jikan Housei to Service Zangyo," 87-88. The ratio of enterprises which had adopted flexible work-time systems increased to 27.7% in December 1992, from 18.1% in the former year. The estimated work-time system was adopted by 4.6% in December 1991. hi enterprises with more than 1000 employees, the ratio of adoption is 57.5% for flexible work-time and 9.9% for the estimated work-time system From these data, it can be said that these work-time systems have diffused more in larger enterprises. [Japan Ministry of Labor, 1994 General Survey on Wages and Working Hours. 27]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. enterprises have a strong incentive to increase employees' working hours46. This is true of Japan. If companies increase the number of regular employees, they have to

pay additional benefits such as commuter allowance, family allowance, training

expense, welfare expense including legal obligations, retirement payment and so on. As a result, in the calculation of labor expenses, increasing overtime is more

advantageous than hiring new employees as long as the extra pay rate for overtime is

below 62.9%47. It is also pointed out that the Japanese "corporate welfare" system, which provides employees with such benefits as preferential home loans, a pension

fund system, as well as company housing and other facilities, aggravates the disadvantages of mid-career retirement and thus contributes to the rearing of

"company men"48. This kind of welfare system, in which corporations look after the entire lives of employees and their families, should be reformed.

2) Systems and management technologies of Japanese-style management In the field of economics, the problem of long working hours has been argued with the main foci on analyzing institutions and management technologies of Japanese- style management. In other words, working long hours has often been explained as the

result of the "unique" Japanese management style which ingeniously controls workers; such management factors are categorized into the following three groups:

46Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (New York: BasicBooks, 1992), 179 and Juliet B. Schor, "Shihon-shugito Rodo Jikan." Keizai Kagaku Tsushm No. 76 (May 1994).

47Morioka Koji, "Service Zangyo no Keizai-gaku," in Datsu Service Zangyo Shakai. eds. Honda Junryo and Morioka Koji (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1993), 49.

48Morioka, "Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai to Rodo Jikan Kozo no Nikyoku-ka," 319.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (1) quota setting: self-assessment system of quota setting and performance rating in particular, which encourage "voluntary" overtime working;

(2) long-time employment, internal labor market and integration of career

paths49; and (3) enterprise-union which is powerless in regulating long working horn's.

The first group of factors is the essence of a peculiar merit promotion system. Competitions among workers are spurred by quota setting through self-assessment and by a performance rating system which evaluates not only workers' achievements

but their desire and will to fulfill the quota as well as their loyalty to the company. Let's examine this mechanism of the Japanese merit promotion system, according to analyses by Kumazawa Makoto. Kumazawa tries to explain the mechanism of "half-

coercive and half-voluntary" working, or working based on the "voluntary will which

is coerced," by referring to the following two aspects: one is the corporations' labor

management techniques which "coerce" workers to work long hours; the other is the

workers' psychology which makes them work hard against their better judgment,

adapting themselves to the request of the company50. Regarding the first aspect, labor management techniques, Kumazawa pays attention to the way of quota setting. Under the self-assessment system of quota setting, a worker first sets his own quota by himself. Through a subsequent interview with his superior, though, he recognizes the superior's "expectation" as a de facto direction and "voluntarily" raises the level of his

49As will be discussed later, this "integration" means that the career paths of blue-collar workers and white-collar workers are not totally separated in many Japanese companies.

50Kumazawa Makoto, Hatarakimonotachi Naki Egao (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1993), i and 4.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. quota. Since he expands the range and amount of his work of his own free will in a

sense, he cannot help but w ork hard from a sense of responsibility for quota fulfillment Thus working means much more than to simply work the prescribed working hours; h is to fulfill the quota itself even if it requires "voluntary" overtime, since doing so is his duty51.

The above-mentioned effects of self-assessment quota setting, Le., driving

workers to overworking, is reinforced by a performance rating system. The reason why the Japanese performance rating system so effectively causes "voluntary"

overworking is, above all, that it does more than evaluating achieved results like quota fulfillment. Kumazawa lists the following three criteria used in performance rating: I)

personal achievement, 2) ability in job performance, and 3) attitude and personality.

This means that there are more than short-term achievements in a given job (like quota fulfillment) which are to be evaluated. The second criterion, ability in job performance,

includes expected potential ability, and the third subject, attitude and personality, implies such factors as will to work, adaptability, and harmoniousness (the degree to which an employee is cooperative with others). This Japanese merit rating system, in high-sounding expressions, "evaluates employees comprehensively in the long run, and

thus expects the development of their ability."52 However, this is why "the rating system makes employees throw all their lives into the competition among themselves."53 Under such a performance rating system, which evaluates will to work

51 Kumazawa, "Nihon-teki Keiei ni okeru Hatarakse-kata no Ronri," in Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai no Kozo, ed. Kiso Keizai Kagaku Kenkyu-sho (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1992), 217-220.

52Kumazawa, Nihon-teki Keiei no Meian (Tokyo: Chikuma-shobo, 1989), 229.

53Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. as well as potential ability, workers tend to avoid reporting the precise overtime since they want to make a show of high ability. Let's look at the second group of factors of Japanese-style management, i.e.,

long-time employment, internal labor market and integration of career paths. This group of factors can be seen as a background against which the above-mentioned

competition system has functioned so effectively in "coercing" workers to work long

hours, hi order for the performance rating to function as it is expected, the

competition system should be such that manyworkers can and want to join. In short, the system must guarantee a sort of equality, meaning that workers will be promoted if

only they demonstrate their ability and have good results. In most Japanese corporations, this condition is fulfilled in a sense: under the long-term employment system, the salary and status of most workers are raised according to merit and seniority; the internal labor market principle provides workers with better position and

status, instead of recruiting someone from outside the corporation, and they are given

chances to promote their ability through various job trainings opportunities and education. Furthermore, by the integration of career paths of white-collar and blue- collar workers, which was achieved from the end of the 1950s to the 1960s, the two tiers' status became equal. Or, at least, the new promotion structure makes blue-collar workers believe that they are treated fairly. This is the reason why the above-

mentioned competition system is spread "throughout all corporate-society levels, involving not only white-collar workers but also blue-collar workers."54

54Watanabe Osamu, "Gendai Shihon-shugi to Nion-gata Kigyo Shakai no Tokushu-sei," in Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai no Kozo, ed. Kiso Keizai Kagaku Kenkyu- sho (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1992), 72. The border between the white-collar and the blue-collar has become ambiguous by "blue-collarization" of the white-collar, as well as by "white-

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A French scholar Benjamin Corea regards these "incentives," such as the formation of the internal labor market and the "open-door policy" in job training, as

compensation given to Japanese workers who have paid the price of devoting themselves to work, and as the core of "compromise" achieved within Japanese

corporations55. It is doubtful, however, that these "incentives" really guarantee

rewards like promotions in the future, as workers expect. That is, as Kumazawa

asserts, corporations arrange different steps of expectation and requests for workers according to a tacit recognition of their ability and achievements56. In this sense, the "ability egalitarianism" of Japanese corporations is merely superficial. Even so, it should be noted that this system has the effect of "not spoiling but encouraging the

workers' will to work"57 only if it appears to have realized a sort of egalitarianism.

collarization" of the blue-collar. According to Naruse Tatsuo, in clerical work, job segmentation and standardization as well as the division of planning and doing have been promoted based on Taylorism. As a result, the intellectual aspects of clerical work have been dispelled to a great extent. Lately this tendency has been further spurred by the diffusion of office-automation. White-collar workers have been separated into two classes: a few comparatively high-ranking workers and those many who have already become indistinguishable from blue-collar workers. In other words, the former are "creaters" who are in charge of intellectual work like planning, and the latter are "operators" who are mainly in charge of technical work such as executing plans. [Naruse Tatsuo, "Gendai Nihon no White Collar," in Datsu Service Zangyo Shakai, ed. Kiso Keizai Kagaku Kenkyu-sho (Tokyo: Rodo Junpo-sha, 1993), 105]

55Benjamin Coriat, Gyakuten no Shiko: Nihon Kigyo no Rodo to Soshiki. trans. Hanada Masanori and Saito Yoshinori (Tokyo: Fujiwara-shoten, 1992). This "compromise" has a specific implication proposed by the "regulation" school of economics: compromise is achieved between labor and capital. For example, the workers' acceptance of Taylorism does not mean that capital unilaterally has forced it. It has been compensated by a new principle of wage increase linked to productivity increase.

56Kumazawa, "Nihon-teki Keiei ni okeru Hatakase-kata no Ronri," 208-215.

57Ibid., 210.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Finally, the third important factor of the Japanese management style is the fact

that enterprise unions have not been able to regulate the "coercion" of long working hours by the above-mentioned management institutions and techniques. Union

activities in Japan have been declining since around 1965, when activities came to be

led by enterprise unions which were cooperative to enterprises. As I mentioned in the

previous chapter, the reason why Japanese working hours began increasing in the

latter half of the 1970s, unlike the opposite trend in European nations, is that Japanese unions had little resistance to the promotion of streamline management. Japanese

unions take only mild measures to prevent long working hours in particular. The

survey results shown in Table 2-1 (in Appendix) reflect this tendency. Based on unions' answers to questionnaires, the survey shows the subjects at issue between unions and managements and how well unions deal with them. The subjects in which "there are few good results obtained (by unions)" include "regulations on overtime,"

"restraint on wage increases (of elderly workers)," "taking of paid holidays," and

"promotion of individual assessment." These subjects are "the ones whereby management makes arbitrary decisions on personnel treatment according to the

individual behavior of each worker."58 These results, therefore, imply that "unions are

not successfid in regulating the merit-based competition among workers and arbitrary

58Kumazawa, Hatakimonotachi Naki Egao. 38-39. It can be said that unions well recognize the seriousness of the problem of long working hours, since the most important management-union subjects, according to this survey, are "reduction of regular working hours" and "regulation of overtime work." However, the unions are not successfully dealing with these subjects. The proportion of unions which "obtain good results" are 28.8% in the former subject and 19.3% in the latter. These figures are much less than the proportion of unions which "obtain few results," 52.7% and 62.1% in each subject.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. personnel treatment by management."59 In short, unions are powerless to reform the

system of merit-based competition which is the core of the problem. Moreover, since

most enterprise unions don't have an influential voice regarding decisions on the number of necessary personnel, unreasonable output schedules are often planned

which causes the chronic overtime and service-overtime work60.

This weak attitude of unions toward the problem of long working hours comes from their "corporate-oriented" nature. That is, it has been a policy of the Japanese enterprise unions to try to improve workers' standard of living through the growth of

enterprises. Therefore, the unions, giving priority to winning the competition against_ other companies, took a positive attitude toward streamline management in order to overcome the depression. As regards the problem of working hours, managements as

well as unions are afraid that they would lose the competition in their industries if they independently reduced working hours or increased holidays61. It can be said that workers themselves too have rather approved the corporate-oriented attitude of

59Ibid.

60Morioka, "Service Zangyo no Keizai-gaku," 61-62.

6lAccording to a survey of labor unions (samples are some 7000 workers from 4000 unions) conducted in 1993, 72.1% of the subjects answered that their unions were giving priority to "the issue of working hours and holidays." This answer ranked second in the priority ranking, following the answer "the issue of wages and bonus" supported by 83.0% (Japan Ministry of Labor, 1994 Nihon no Rodo Kumiai no fieryo [TF], Tokyo: the Ministry of Finance, the Printing Bureau, 1994). A more noteworthy result of the survey concerns the issues for which they expect support from an industrial federation of labor unions. "The issue of working hours and holidays" (51.8%) ranked first, followed by "the issue of wages and bonus" (44.2%) and "issues as regards policies and institutions such as tax reduction" (37.5%). This result implies that union workers recognize that it is hard to solve the problem of long working hours unless the movement is promoted throughout a whole industry led by the industrial federation.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. unions instead of actively trying to reform them into Western-style ones which

emphasize organized vis-a-vis negotiations with management. Since the Japanese way has had "a certain practical benefit," that is, standard of living has been improved

through the growth of companies, during the period of high growth in particular, "workers have preferred the management side to the (militant) union based on a 'cool'

judgement."62 The situation has been gradually changing. In addition to the fact that the unionisation rate has fallen to 24.2% of the total labor force in 199363, it is said

that many workers have complaints against unions for "not listening to the opinions and claims of workers" and for "accepting the standpoints of management too much."64 Such a tendency among workers is worthy of note, since it may lead to the

reform of corporate-oriented unions. It is essential that holiday and work-hour systems be improved through union activities in order to achieve work-time reduction. Despite the critical view of workers against corporate-oriented unions, however, the above- “

mentioned competitive structure has been so deeply rooted among workers that it will take a long time to carry out the reform.

3) Weakness of economic approaches

62Watanabe, "Gendai Shihon-shugi to Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai no Tokushu- sei," 75.

63This figure is based on a survey (basic survey of labor unions) by the Ministry of Labor. The degree of unionisation has declined since 1975.

64Ooguro Satoshi, "Nihon Rodo Kumiai no Mondai to Kadai: Soshilri-ritsu Teika no Gen'in Bunseki kara," Kenkvu Ronshu (Kanagawa Daigaku Daigaku-in Keizaigaku Kenkyu-ka) Vol. 19 (September 1993): 1-96 and Ooguro Satoshi, "Sakikin no Nihon Rodo Kumiai Soshiki-ritsu Teika no Gen'in Kenkyu to Mondaiten," Kenkvu Ronshu Vol. 22 (July 1994): 28-34.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The most notable feature of the above-mentioned economic approaches lies in their emphasis on the "coercion" of working long hours; they try to solve the problem by analyzing the structure of Japanese corporate society and Japanese-style

management techniques. At this point, we had better go back to the notion of "coerced" and "voluntary" overworking. There are different analytic stances on this issue which can be roughly divided into the following three: 1) Coercion: the working of long hours is caused by coercive systems and

institutions, irrelevant to the voluntary will of workers;

2) Voluntary will: long horns are a manifestation of workers' loyalty, high degree of commitment and identification with organizations;

3) Combination of coercion and voluntary will: the working of long hours has

been occured since workers, at least as a final decision, accept it under some coercion by management systems and institutions.

The first stance, the one which emphasizes the aspect of "coercion," is represented by the super-exploitation thesis of K. Dohse and others65. They argue that Japanese-style management represented by Toyotism is a system of accepted slave labor and worker passivity, which is characterized by low wages, long working hours, flexible deployment of labor, a multi-skilled system, devotion to the company and so on. However, Martin Kenney and Richard Florida oppose this view in their article "Beyond Mass Production: Production and the Labour Process in Japan"66. This

65K Dohse, U. Jurgens and T. Malsch, "From Tordism' to 'Toyotism'? Social Organisation of the Labor Process in the Japanese Automobile Industry," Politics and Society VoL 14 No. 2 (1985).

66Martin Kenney and Richard Florida, "Beyond Mass Production: Production and the Labour Process in Japan," Politics and Society Vol 16 No. 1 (1988). Kenney and Florida recognize Japanese capitalism, represented by "Fujitsuism," as a form of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. debate between Dohse and Kenney/Florida was further developed by Kato Tetsuro and Rob Steven who, supporting the view of Dohse, maintained that Toyotisni should

be seen as a sort of "hyper-Fordism" or "ultra-Fordism"67. Kato and Steven assert that the Japanese style management had realized "one of the cruellest and most oppressive

systems of capitalist domination over labor."68 As regards these perspectives which merely focus on the "coercive" aspect of management, the following comment on the

debate by Andrew Gordon is very suggestive:

Once Japan is labelled 'one of the cruellest and most oppressive systems of capitalist domination' it is almost impossible not to slip into a stance which 'exceptionalizes' Japan's workers as super-docile super-exploitable and 'exceptionalizes' Japanese in power as super-nasty, callous or manipulative. This is an analytic stance that I call culturalism, that others call orientalism, and I know Kato and Steven both oppose.69

"post-Fordism." For example, they argue that "the kernel of contemporary Japanese capitalism lies in a dialectical synthesis" "of liard' and 'smart' work" and that Japanese capitalism has developed "very sophisticated mechanisms for tapping the intelligence as well as the physical output of human labor power." [Kenney and Florida, "The Japanese System: The Very Vanguard of Post-Fordism," in Is Japanese Management Post-Fordism?, eds. Kato Tetsuro and Rob Steven (Tokyo: Mado-sha, 1993), 109.]"

67Kato Tetsuro and Rob Steven eds., Is Japanese Management Post- Fordism? (Tokyo: Mado-sha, 1993).

68Kato and Steven, "Is Japanese Capitalism Post-Fordist?" in Kato and Steven, 69. As for Japanese labor management, Kato and Steven emphasize how the system effectively creates "competition" among workers through such techniques as QC circles. They maintain that "'consensus' is achieved in Japan by means of manipulation and intimidation." For example, the QC circle is "a process whereby the workers lose power to defend their interests," and "the dynamic is competition rather than cooperation." Since "[Organising workers into competitive straggles with one another" is "a very old trick used by capital to impose its will on labor," Japanese capitalism is by no means "post-fordism," they assert.

69 Andrew Gordon, "In Defence of Historical Dialectical Analysis," in Kato and Steven, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To sum up, an approach that only focuses on the "coercive" force of institutional

factors cannot be reasonable without assuming the "exceptional" nature of Japanese

workers, as does the above-mentioned second stance (the "voluntary" stance). This

approach, in other words, lacks explanations on why such "oppressive" coercion has

been accepted by Japanese workers. The second stance views the working of long hours as a manifestation of

workers' loyalty, high degree of commitment and identification with the organization. This stance can be further divided into two different stances according to the support for "cultural explanations"; some assert that the docile attitude of workers derives

from the peculiar culture and the national character of the Japanese, and others deny it. Those who deny the cultural explanations include Lincoln and Kalleberg who maintain

that under the principle of "welfare corporatism" and "corporatist organization,"

Japanese corporations have raised workers with high loyalty as well as dependency on

the company. This viewpoint, however, makes light of the aspect of management

"coercion," as Suzuki Yoshiji says70. Cultural explanations as such are also insufficient to explain the problem of long working hours. As will be discussed in the next chapter,

it is necessary to explain how cultural and social peculiarities are intensified in corporations to the extent that they appear as workers' high loyality and diligence. Finally, there is the third stance which combines the above-mentioned two

perspectives. This stance recognizes that the problem can be explained neither solely as management coercion nor as the voluntary will of workers; both aspects do exist

and therefore it is most important to analyze why workers finally "accept" the

70Suzuki Yoshiji, Nihon-teki Seisan System to Kigyo Shakai (Hokkaido, Japan: Hokkaido Daigaku Tosho Kanko-kai, 1994).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. management "coercive" measures. The approaches in the field of economics introduced in this chapter are shifting their stance from the first one (the stance of mere coercion) to this one. For example, as was mentioned in the first chapter of this

paper, a political scientist Watanabe Osamu points out that the abnormal growth of

Japanese "worker bees" and Japanese economy share the same roots. However, he refrains from concluding that management has taken coercive measures, stating that

"workers who support the growth of the great economic power are not 'forced' to work until they are killed by karoshi." That is,

Under external coercive forces, workers dont work until they die of karoshi. Karoshi has become a serious social problem because there is a structure whereby workers voluntarily, to all appearances, render devoted service to the company71.

Elsewhere Watanabe also maintains that many of those workers who died of karoshi continued to work out of a sense of responsibility for co-workers and the company,

being afraid that their absence from work would "obstruct work proceedings" and

"make the company have some trouble." Therefore, he further insists, it is necessary to elucidate "the management system which makes workers think that 'nobody could

replace them'"72. Watanabe is surely aware of and tries to tackle, the "voluntary" aspect of the

problem. Nevertheless, not only Watanebe but most economists end up by criticizing the "structure" which makes workers think that "nobody could replace them." The

main focus of the analyses within the framework of economics is on structural

71Watanabe, "Yutakana Shakai" Nihon no Kozo. 12.

72Watanabe, "Gendai Shihon-shugi to Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai no Tokushu- sei," 54-55.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. problems such as Japanese corporate society, management systems and techniques. -

Workers' psychology and ethics themselves are not fully analyzed there73, because many economists "regard labor1 merely as an economic act and therefore think that it is unnecessary even to touch the psychological and echical aspects of labor."74 Under

the principle of economics, it is assumed that a man, homo economicus, always acts

rationally to maximize"utility" according to a set of preferences. In other words,

His behavior is cool and rational, unlike "psychoanalytic man" (who is driven by compulsion) or "sociological man" (who is confined by social norms). Homo economicus is an individual, acting alone, who does what he does because he believes it is the course of action that will bring him the most utility.75

As mentioned in the first chapter of this paper, it is necessary to investigate work ethics and sense of values by probing into workers' psychology. Sugimura

Yoshimi maintains that "to work is not a mere economic act" and that "work comprises various aspects which are expressed by such terms as job, labor and profession."76 In addition to supporting living, work sometimes brings about one's

goals in life and can be an act in which one identifies oneself with others through sharing time and space. It is why there arise "irrational" ways of working: workers can be absorbed in their jobs without noticing the time; they can unwillingly accept

73As will be mentioned in the last chapter, approaches by Kumazawa Makoto are exceptional: he puts great emphasis on workers' psychology in analyzing the problem.

74Sugimura Yoshimi, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika (Kyoto: Minerga-shobo, 1990), 78.

75Schor, The Overworked American. 136.

76Sugimura, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika. 78.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "service overtime" from a sense of duty; and unfortunately, they can continue to overwork even to the point of karoshi. Accepting that work comprises various aspects, we should ask how work ethics and psychology, under what social norms, are affecting the working of long hours. In the fourth chapter of this paper, such an

approach is tried to supplement analyses in the field of economics.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 3

CULTURAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES

As was discussed in the former chapter, analyses in the field of economics have

their focus on the aspect of "coercion" by Japanese management systems. In these ' analyses psychological factors which might explain why workers have accepted long

hours are not fully addressed. Making up for such a deficiency, there are approaches which emphasize cultural and social factors. Such approaches have the following

perspective:

A comparative analysis should pay attention not only to structural and functional aspects of management systems but to social and cultural factors which generate the structure and support the function of the systems.77 When we analyze the "voluntary" working of long hours, in particular, we should

not ignore social and cultural factors, because people's culture and sense of values developed through socialization and school education must have a significant effect on their attitude towards work. This kind of cultural and social perspective is often referred to as grounds for Japanese "voluntary" overworking, which is the second

77Iwata Ryushi, "Kokusai Hikaku Keiei no Bunseki Wakugumi," Asia Hatten Kenkyu No. 2 (1994), 120. Iwata insists that Japanese-style management should be analyzed on the following three levels: 1) fundamental character of the management style; 2) basic structure of the management systems; and 3) management techniques which have been developed in Japan. As for the first level, in Japanese corporations "employees form 'relationship-based groups' through 'sha-en'(personal ties fostered in the corporate life)" and "they are treated as insiders in corporate management activities." (Ibid., 154.) Thus he emphasizes that Japanese corporations are different from Western corporations which are typically "self-independent groups."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. stance among the three stances stated in the former chapter. In this paper, such cultural and social perspectives are to be incorporated in the third perspective, i.e., the

perspective of a mixture of "coercion" and "voluntary" overworking. Prior to developing an original model of the working of long hours by Japanese, cultural and

sociological explanations related to this problem are analyzed in this chapter.

1) Cultural approach: Confucianism and high-context culture

The first and most popular cultural explanation refers to "diligence" as a manifestation of Japanese national character. An economist Sawa Takamitsu maintains

that Japanese primary education with its standardized cramming in of knowledge has

inoculated people with the importance of diligence and a sense of values that recognizes work as their raison d'etre78. Such a national character would affect the way people work, because

...the length of work time as well as the preference for ’working' ultimately depends upon national characteristics which have been fostered through a long history and upon types of professions.79

7sTeachers in Japanese elementary schools sometimes put a stamp on assignments done by students and exam sheets when they evaluate them. The most undesirable one for students says, "Motto Ganbarimasho," meaning "You should make more effort." The Japanese word "ganbaru" which in context means "to keep trying" or "never give up," is frequently used as a common encouragement for others.

79 Sawa Takamitsu, "Kokumin-sei, Shokugyou de Kotonaru Rodo-kan: 'Kinben-sa' Tamochi Kokusai Koken wo," Asahi Shmhnn (18 March 1992), evening edition, 13. A leading Japanese sociologist Tominaga Kenichi also asserts, from a different point of view, that the Japanese kaisha-shugi (corporate-oriented patterns of behaviors) can be attributed to the people's diligence. His interpretation suggests that after the defeat in World War n deprived people of their loyalty to the nation, corporations took the empty place in people's minds. If employees "hope to work diligently, there was no choice other than diligence in corporations," and "such a tendency was motivated by the recognition that diligence, for the Japanese, is the key

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Sawa is against simple calls for work-time reduction, stating that "it is the noblesse oblige of Japan to generously use money for international aid while sustaining the

virtue of diligence."80 It is often said that Japanese diligence is derived from cultural traditions of Confucianism. Those who recognize Confucianism as an important driving force of the remarkable economic development of Eastern Asia insist that the future-oriented

Confiician ethos which values such acts and attitudes as effort, hard work, self-denial, perseverance, saving and education is the basis of attitudes towards work in this

cultural sphere81. In James Fallows' words, Confiician diligence appears as an

emphasis on "duty for its own sake."82 That is, most Japanese "value the effort that

goes into an activity about as much as the reward that comes out."83 "The reward of

to escape from poverty." [Tominaga Ken'ichi, "Mou Kodo Seicho wa Iranai," Economist Vol. 20 No. 31 (21 July 1992), 22.]

80Ibid.

81Lawrence E. Harrison, Who Prospers: How Cultural Values Shape Economic and Political Success (New York BasicBooks. 1992), 141-142. Analyses of the role of Confucianism as an organizing principle of social organizations in economic development can be traced back to M. Weber's "Confucianism and Taoism." As for the recognition that the development of the NDEs can be attributed to the Confiician ethic, there are critics who point out that Islamic nations like Malaysia and Indonesia have also grown into "semi-NIEs" and that modem capitalism was introduced late to China. See Toh Teruhiko. NICs: Kogyo-ka Asia wo Yomu (Tokyo: Kodan-sha, Kodansha Gendai Shinsho, 1988).

82James Fallows, More Like Us: Making America Great Again (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 45.

83Ibid., 44.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. working hard in Japan is to continue to be able to work," since they generally "work for the joy of work itself" he wrote.84 In addition to Confucianism, other thoughts such as Sekimon-shingaku, the teachings ofNinomiya Sontoku, the philosophy of Chuang-tzu and Taoism are often

referred to as roots of Japanese diligence. Among these, Taoism teaches that '"Michi'

(the way) is to pursue the state where you can be unconcious of your own skills even though you do acquire these skills as a result of sheer effort and diligence."85 Japanese

diligence may stem from the Taoist ethos which values the endless pursuit of this "Michi" by devoting oneself to whatever work one does.

Another national characteristic of the Japanese, loyalty to the groups to which

one belongs, is also often attributed to Confiician culture. A celebrated economist Morishima Michio adopts this point of view. After emphasizing that Confucianism as understood and diffused in Japan put the most importance on "loyalty" among the Confiician virtues, Morishima recognizes features of Confiician society, where "one should do his/her duties faithfully," in the way workers work for Japanese

companies.86 How faithful and loyal to the group a person is is measured by the

84Ibid., 37. Fallows is often recognized as a Japan revisionist. By explaining these different attitudes toward work, he insists that Japanese culture and politics have promoted the producer's interests rather than the consumer's unlike in the U.S. where the opposite tendency is observed.

85Ono Susumu, "Jukyo Rinri to Shihon-shugi no Seishin," Rfrsumeikan Keizaigaku Vol. 42 No. 4 (October 1993), 447-448. Ono lists the following roots of Japanese diligence: Suzuki Shozo (1579-1655) of Soto-shu (a sect of Buddhism), the first Japanese religionist to take a positive stance towards commerce; Ishida Baigan of Sekimon-shingaku who developed Suzuki's thoughts on professions and work; and Ninomiya Sontoku who is famous for practicing diligence and saving.

86Morishima Michio, Naze Nihon wa "Seiko" Shitaka? (Tokyo: TBS Britanica, 1984), 148. According to Morishima, the most valued virtue in the original

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. degree of self-sacrifice. Workers, therefore, should participate in "gray activities" such as a company's athletic meeting, even though participation would result in their giving up their weekend's plan with the family. They would not be treated as faithful and

loyal members of the company if they could not infer the real purpose of the event, i.e., to show their solidarity with the company. Furthermore, if they join the event, their

loyalty will be highly evaluated and they will be given rewards such as status and bonus. In this sense, loyalty is a valuable virtue both ethically and practically. Thus "in

Japan, workers are not only to complete the preset job but to devote all their waking hours to the company."87

In addition to the above-mentioned Confiician cultural explanation, which focuses on internalized religious motivations, another cultural approach might be

helpful in analyzing the working of long hours. This explanation is based on theories

by the antholopologist Edward Half Hall states that culture affects every aspect of human life including personality, the way we think and move as well as the structure

teachings of K'ung-tzu was benevolance. In Japan, though, the Meiji government attached great importance to loyalty, duty, and wisdom in the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors (1882) and the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890). This ideology filtered into people through mandatory education. Moreover, the meaning of "loyalty" in Japan is selfless devotion and sincerity to one's master, which is different from the original Confiician implication (sincerity to one's own conscience). (Ibid., 17.) By the way, in her famous work The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), Ruth Benedict also points out that the Japanese made the virtue of loyalty supreme. However, Benedict asserts that it is not Confiician but Japanese cultural trait.

87Ibid. In spite of these views, Morishima emphasizes the "voluntary" mentality of Japanese workers. He states that workers themselves "feel satisfied with their job when they think that they hve demonstrated their loyalty to the company in an exceptional way." Therefore overtime working is just like "spontaneous club activities," because "they get more satisfaction from the overtime than from regular work." (Ibid., 147.)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and function of economic and political systems88. It is frequently the most obvious and

taken-for-granted and therefore the least studied aspects of culture that influence

behavior in the deepest and most subtle ways89. A typical example of such an "obvious" and "taken-for-granted" aspect of culture is the way we deal with our own

time and space systems. Hall terms two representatives of the ways we use time and

space, organizing frames for activities, as monochronic time (M-time) and polychronic time (P-time). Under the M-time system, which is the typical North European and

American system, time and space is compartmentalized, segmented and scheduled, and

by doing so, M-time people recognize and handle priorities among jobs and human relations. The "coercion" of an eight-hour, nine to five schedule is an example of the

M-time mode, which often sacrifices achievement of creative work. As Hall states:

How often has the reader had the exprerience of realizing that he is pleasurably immersed in some creative activity, totally unaware of time, solely conscious of the job at hand, only to be brought back to "reality" with the rude shock of realizing that other, preset, frequently inconsequential commitments are bearing down on him.90

Another time and space system, the P-time system, dominant in Latin America

and the Middle East, emphasizes involvement of people and completion of transactions rather than adherence to preset schedules. Time is non-linear and less tangible in the P-time system. P-time people tend to do many things at one time,

88Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Doubleday, 1981), 16. Hall introduces three characteristics of culture on which anthropologists in general agree: it is not innate, but learned; the various facets of culture are interrelated-you touch a culture in one place and everything else is affected; it is shared and in effect defines the boundaries of different groups.(Ibid.)

"Ibid., 17.

"Ibid., 20.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. change plans often and easily and base promptness on the relationship91. Hall views the Japanese time system as a hybrid of these two:

The Japanese are polychronic when looking and working inward, toward themselves. When dealing with the outside world, they have adopted the dominant time system [M-time system] which characterizes that world.92

In other words, though the dominant time system in Japan is M-time, as the strictness of time keeping as well as the precise train schedules show, the Japanese - shift their mode to P-time during interaction among insiders who are in an

interdependent relationship with each other. In such human relations, completion of transactions is valued more than the preset schedule. When we adopt Hall's "P-time" explanation in interpreting the working of long hours in Japan, it can be seen as a manifestation of Japanese culture "which values involvement of people and completion

of jobs rather than adherence to preset schedules."93 Besides, as will be further

discussed in the next section, it has been very important for "salarymen" to build

91Edawrd T. Hall and Mildred Reed Hall, Hidden Differences: Doing Business with the Japanese (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 18-19. Edward Hall's theories on culture are represented by the concepts of low-context and high-context cultures. He asserts that in low-context cultures M-time mode is dominant, and in the latter P-time is mainly used. In any information system "meaning" is made up of: the communication; the background and preprogrammed responses of the recipient (i.e., internal context); and the situation (Le., external context).(Hall, Beyond Culture, 100.) Since in high-context cultures, meaning is contained in contexts more than in the transmitted verbal message, people tend to preprogram (contextualize internally) information by sharing more time and space under the P-time system.

92Edward T. Hall, The Dance o f Life: The Other Dimension of Time (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 58.

93However, there could be an alternative interpretation: the Japanese work- time is, in a sense, a sort of typical M-time mode which persists in a "preset" seven to eleven work schedule.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. harmonious human relations through sharing a long time with each other (for example, by actively joining "gray activities"), if they wish to "happily" serve in a company. We

should keep in mind the fact that such P-time practices have been a significant part of

the long hours worked in Japan.

2) Sociological approach: Contextualism and feminism In this section, sociological standpoints, which pay attention to the relation

between work ethic and sense of values regarding work on the one hand, and the organizing principles of society on the other, are examined. Many foreign scholars as well as Japanese often point out that Japanese workers

do not regard their company merely as a place to earn a living; they are involved more totally and demonstrate their strong commitment to the organization. Abegglen and

Stalk assert that in the West there are institutions that "share these patterns." But they are "religious orders, professional armies, professional bureaucracies," and "Western corporations are rarely among them."94 van Wolfren also presents a similar

observation. Under the Japanese social norm, he states,

If the salaryman cannot feel that he is merged with his firm, or cannot at least pretend to be totally bound up in it, he can hardly be considered a worthy and full-fledged member of society.95

94James C. Abegglen and George Stalk, Kaisha, The Japanese Corporation (New York: BasicBooks, 1985), 200-201. Abegglen and Stalk basically explain that this peculiarity of Japanese corporations has been promoted by the long-time employment system.

"Karel van Wolfren, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 160.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It can be said that such a "peculiarity" of Japanese companies has significantly affected the way workers work including the length of work-time. Then, what characteristics and norms of Japanese society influence this peculiarity of Japanese companies and the

way workers act? Sociological approaches which pay attention to the structure of

Japanese society give some hints. The aforementioned structural characteristic of Japanese organizations, i.e., they

are "just like the military,"96 is often explained as groupism or collectivism, compared with the individualism of the West. Hazama Hiroshi defines groupism as the tendency

which prioritizes the interests of a group over those of an individual97. To put it simply, a behavioral principle of the "groupist" Japanese would be that an individual is delighted to obey the decisions of the group and to sacrifice himself However, "it is not necessarily true that the concept of'groupism' is as thoroughly discussed as is

96Carles Douglas Lummis states that Japan "has transferred work ethics in the military organizations to companies better than other nations." Americans laugh at the Japanese workers on the TV screen who are exercising, singing together and standing to listen to a speech in morning ceremonies; yet the same behaviors are observed in the U.S. military. Though "people from American culture do not hesitate to do" such things, it is "not in companies." [Carles Douglas Lummis and Saito Shigeo, "Naze Nihonjin wa Shinu hodo Hataraku-nodesuka?" Iwanami Booklet 198 (June 1991), 16-17]

97Hazama Hiroshi, Nihon-teki Keiei: Shudan-shugi no Kouzai (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbun-sha, 1971). Geert Hofstede explains "collectivism" in an anthropological sense as follows: Collectivist cultures assume that individuals — through birth and possibly later events — belong to one or more close "in-groups," from which they cannot detach themselves. The in-group (whether extended family, clan or organization) protects the interest of its members, but in turn expects their permanent loyalty. A collectivist society is tightly integrated; an individualist society is loosely integrated. [Geert Hofstede, "Cultural Relativity of the Quality of Life Concept," in Culture, Communication and Conflict: Readings in Intercultural Relations, eft. Gary R. Weaver (Needham Height, MA: GINN PRESS, 1994), 133.]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. often thought,"98 and there are various perspectives such as those shown in

anthropological analyses by Ruth Benedict99 and in sociological approaches by

Nakane Chie100. Here we will examine one of the sociological approaches to Japanese groupism, the theory of "contextualism" ( kanjin-shugi) by Hamaguchi Eshun.

Hamaguchi's contextualism theory is distinguished from other groupism theories

in the respect that it does not assume the universality of Western individualistic methodology. "Japanese groupism" has generally been recognized as a culture-specific concept or "emic," with an assumption that both "groupism" and "individualism" are

culture-common "etics."101 Hamaguchi, though, thinks that the concepts "individual" and "individualism" themselves are emics. The Western "individual" implicitly means

an autonomous, independent subject. In other words, the frame of reference in

98Aoki Tamotsu, "Nihon Bunka ron " no Henyo (Tokyo: Chuo-koron-sha, 1990), 49.

"Ruth Benedict (1967) states that the essence of Japanese groupism is human relations whereby moral indebtedness (on) and obligation/duty (gimu and giri) play a significant role. Loyalty means paying back the moral indebtedness based on one's sense of duty; one feels very shameful for not doing this. This culture of "shame" is quite different from the culture of "guilt," in the respect that value judgments depend upon relations with others, and hence are not absolute. Guilt arises from internalized conviction of sin, while shame is a reflection of external sanctions.

100Nakane Chie, Tate-shakai no Ningen Kankei (Tokyo: Kodansha, Kodansha Gendai Shinsho, 1967) and Nakane Chie, late-shakai no Rikigaku(Tokyo: Kodansha, Kodansha Gendai shinsho, 1978).

101Etics are culture-general or culture-common concepts which can be found among people all over the world; emics are culture-specific concepts which are found in some but not other societies. For example, socializing children to become responsible members of society is an etic, while the concept that the responsibility foj socializing is taken by parents is an emic. The terms etic and emic come from phonetic and phonemic analyses in linguistics. [Richard Brislin, Understanding Culture's Influence on Behavior (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Publishers, 1993), 71-74.]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. objectifying oneself is only him/herself An "individual" in the Japanese context, in comparison, is a referential subject who perceives that relations with others constitute oneself102. Hamaguchi termed such an existence of a human-being as "the contextual"

in contrasting with "the individual" of the West. Contextualism, then, is a social

principle of a society constituted of contextual^

Contextualism is characterized by reciprocal dependence and reliance among

members, and the recognition that human relations are an essential part of society. It can be said that these characteristics tend to induce group-oriented actions, prioritizing the interests of a group like social demands over self interests. And therefore, the way

the Japanese work might be affected by these characteristics of society. One would determine how to act according to situations and human relations since such factors are incorporated in one's identity103. This pattern of action can be evidenced in quota-

102Hamaguchi Eshun, "Nihon-teki Shudan-shugi towa Nani ka," In Nihon- telti Shudan-shugi, eds. Hamaguchi Eshun and Kiunon Shunpei (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, Yuhikaku Sensho, 1982), 21. Hamaguchi explains the concept "the contextual" with quotes from works by a Japanese psychoanalyst Kimura Bin. The Japanese word ningen (human beings) consists of two Chinese characters, hito (man) and aida (between). Hence, Kimura maintains, the word ningen implies that a human being is an existence which is placed between man and man. Kimura also distinguishes jibun, self- consciousness of the Japanese, from jiga, Le., ego or established self-identity. Since the word jibun consists ofji (self) and bun (part/portion), h means "my portion," the portion of something that transcends the self And therefore who I am is determined by the relationship between self and partner. Though the concept "the contextual" is similar to "important others" by George Mead and "looking-glass self' by Charles Cooly, Hamaguchi emphasizes the difference: those Western concepts still remain "individual" models since the concept "me," the self formed by social norms, assumes that the concept "I" means an autonomous existence. [Ross Mouer and Sugimoto Yoshio, eds. Kojin Kaqjin Nihoqjin: Japanology wo Koete (Tokyo: Gakuyo-shobo, 1987), 15.]

103Hamaguchi calls such patterns of action as standards-oriented behavior whereby criteria of action are "standards." Standards-oriented behavior, which is significantly affected by situational factors, derives from the p articularism-situationistn

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. setting of workers, as we have noticed; when a worker is apprised of the "expectation" of his/her boss, s/he will "voluntarily" raise the amount of quota. Thus Japanese

workers are sensitive to expectations and evaluations from others because they don't want to damage harmonious relationships with their boss and co-workers. Because Gf

this psychology, labor management techniques which utilize competition as well as

affiliation among workers within work-related small groups as units, such as QC circles, function more effectively in Japanese corporations — in the sense that they make workers work more voluntarily for longer hours. Damaging or losing human

relationships means destroying links with others which have been built into one's own identity ; this would cause serious crises of identity. The above-noted characteristics of contextualism society have the effect of

promoting "gray activities." In societies where reciprocal reliance and continuous

human relationships are valued, an individual had better get to know others' expectations and thoughts through frequent communications. Hoogvelt and Yuasa

note that

of the contextual society. In contrast, the major behavioral pattern of the West is norms-oriented behavior, which is a manifest of universalism-logicism [Hamaguchi Eshun, "Nihoqjm Rashisa" no Saihakken (Tokyo: Kodan-sha, Kodansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1988), 14-80], R.N. Bellah maintains that Japanese society traditionally puts the emphasis on "particularism" and "performance (achievement)," as contrasted with the U.S. "universalism" and "performance" and Chinese "particularism" and "quality (ascription)" [R. N. Bellah, Nihon Kindaika to Shukyo Rinri, trans. Hori Ichiro and Ikeda Akira (Tokyo: Mirai-sha, 1992), 12-13], Particularism and universalism are analyzed in detail in a comparative cultural study by Charles Hampden-Tumer and Alfons Trompenaars [Charles Hampden-Tumer and Alfons Trompenaars, The Seven Cultures of Capitalism fNew York: Doubleday, 1993)].

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. having no internal moral scale against which to judge their own conduct as it would appear in the eyes of others, people have to depend exclusively on the continuous signals that come from others.104 Hence, workers need to make an appearance at events and meetings which are "gray,"

Le., not necessarily on duty. Merry White who has examined the "reentry" problem of

Japanese employees assigned to a post abroad concludes as follows: Membership in a Japanese group is mandated not by "contract," "commonality" such as behavior or

belief but by "relationship," i.e., active presence and participation in the social network. Since face-to-face interaction itself is the goal, just like an American high school clique,

constant and active participation is required; "if a member spends too much time in the

company of nonmembers, s/he will be excluded."105 Here we can see the moral foundation of "corporate men" who share long hours with co-workers even after closing time. hi addition to the above-stated explanations based on contextualism, another

sociological perspective is suggestive in thinking of the problem of long working hours. This perspective regards Japanese society as a masculine society. In Japanese society, achieving something great or getting public esteem through one's job has been highly

104Anlie Hoogvelt and Yuasa Masae, "Going Lean or Going Native? The Social Regulation of'Lean' Production Systems," Review of International Political Economy Vol. 1 No. 2 (Summer 1994), 298. Hoogvelt and Yuasa state that the diligence and loyalty of Japanese workers stem from their psychic need to secure one's sense of self (Ibid., 295 and 298).

105Merry White, The Japanese Overseas: Can They Go Home Again? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 105-110. In this case study, White compares three Japanese returnee families which had spent time overseas. Among three fathers who worked for different Japanese companies and universities, the one who often went back to Japan to check in at the home office and to appear at important meetings had least trouble in "reentrying" Japanese society. This analysis shows that it is extremely important in establishing self identity for the Japanese to maintain communications among in-groups.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. valued as a respectable way of life for men (males). There are phrases like danshi-no- honkai (long cherished ambition of men) and otoko-issho-no-shigoto (men's lifework) which imply that it is a worthy act for a man to devote himself to work106. In

comparison, young unmarried females who have no jobs are called "assistant housekeepers" ( kaji-tetsudai), a title that would never be allowed for males. An

international comparison by Geert Hofstede shows that among S3 countries and regions surveyed Japan has the most masculine culture, the culture that "use[s] the biological existence of two sexes to define very different social roles for men and

women" and where "political/organizational values stress material success and

assertiveness."107 The division of labor between males and females actually influences the problem

of long working hours. Ida Hiroyuki, who takes feminism viewpoints into the study of labor, asks the following question: "Why can a worker (husband) who leaves his home

at six-thirty in the morning and gets home at eleven PM continue to live?" He answers,

"because this worker in fact owns a 'shadow existence' as a part of himself (one

human-unit)," and this shadow existence (wife) is in charge of housekeeping, child

106Sugimura Yoshimi notes that "one researcher once told me that overwork was supported by otoko-no-bigaku [which literally means 'aesthetics of males']." (Sugimura, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo lownNanika. 21.)

l07Hofstede, "The Cultural Relativity of the Quality of Life Concept," 133. Subjects of this survey are employees of subsidiaries of a multinational business corporation. Based on paper-and-pencil answers on 32 value questions, Hofstede examined differences in value patterns across countries and regions. Four dimensions used in the comparison are as follows: power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, and uncertainty avoidance. Japan is characterized by relatively high power distance and collectivity, high uncertainty avoidance, and extremely high masculinity. Countries which have most feminine cultures are North European nations such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. care, and nursing parents108. To put it simply, "Japanese men have been able to survive the life of six-to-twelve working because they have had women (wives) at home to care for them."109 Japan is a "couple-unit society" in that a family (married couple), «

not an individual, is regarded as one unit. For example, administrativesystems such as

taxation and the social welfare system are organized under the principle of the couple-

unit. Since a couple is one unit, role sharing between males and females becomes "natural": in families, males earn a living and females are in charge of housework; in

companies, males are assigned to long-hours managerial and important jobs and

females are assigned to assistant jobs.110 In a society where it is assumed that the division of labor between males and

females is natural, people become more positive to masculinity and femininity. Wives often throw themselves into "competition through husbands and children," that is, - "self-oppressive lives whereby they make every effort to achieve promotion of

husbands and academic success of children which might compensate for the sacrificed

self-realization of themselves."111 In an episode quoted by Kashima, one Japanese company which abolished the manager system met the strong protest of employees' wives who "claimed that they would feel ashamed if their husbands at a certain age did

108Ida Hiroyuki, "Single Tan'i-ron," Ryukoku Daigaku Keizai-gaku Ronshu Vol. 33 No. 4 (March 1994), 97.

109Ida Hiroyuki, "Shokuba ya Katei deno Atarashii Kangaekata: Hatarakisugi Mondai to Josei Mondai wo Musubi-tsukeru," Lecture given at the 12th Keizai/Bunka Seminar of Osaka Keizai Daigaku, Osaka Furitsu Bunka Joho Center, 16 September 1994.

110Ida, "Single Tan'i-ron," 102.

11‘Ibid., 104

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not have the title of manager."112 Husbands earn overtime pay and aim at getting promotion for the sake of wives and children; wives, too, dev ote themselves to long hours of housework night and day, trying to support their husbands. Such a division of

labor within families promotes the working of long hours by Japanese salarymen.

According to several surveys, in Japanese families the main recreation activities for husbands are "reading newspapers and magazines and watching TV," and wives do not feel that they can relax by "sitting in a happy circle (of family)" or by "having

conversations with husbands." As Osawa states, "the life shared by kaisha-ningen (company-man) and naijo-no-tsuma (wife who helps her husband inside the home) is

lonely."113 In order to change this couple-unit society, it is necessary to reform the

existing administrative systems into single-unit-based ones as well as change people's minds114.

112Kashima Takashl Otoko no Zahyo Jiku (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1993), 46.

113Oosawa Mari, Kigyo Chushm Shakai wo Koete (Tokyo: Jiji Tsushin-sha, 1993), 123. A survey by Asahikasei, introduced by Osawa, shows interesting data. The length of average "absence" time of husbands (i.e., from leaving to getting home) is, 10 hours and 24 minutes in New York, 10 hours and 48 minutes in London, and 12 hours and 12 minutes in Tokyo. Osawa comments on these data: [Japanese husbands]... get up as late as possible, have breakfast prepared by wives, rush to companies, undertake overtime almost everyday. They have dinner with their families only about twice a week. After getting home and enjoying some three hours of TV and a bath, they jump into bed to sleep.. . . [If they continued such a pattern of living,] They would be immediately divorced in New York. (Ibid., 113)

ll4Ida Hiroyuki, "Single Tan'i-ron Kanten ni yoru Shakai Hosho Seido, Zei Seido nado no sai-Kento," in Global Jidai no Rodo to Seikatsu. ed. Takenaka Emiko (Kyoto: Minerva-shobo, 1993), 197-199.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3) Weakness of cultural and sociological approaches Cultural and sociological explanations snch as the above-noted ones offer several important viewpoints on the effects of cultural differences on business management, _

which are often ignored in the field of economics. It is possible that companies and/or workers are engaged in "irrational" acts which derive from cultural and social factors. In analyzing the problem of long working hours, in particular, it is important to take these aspects into account. However, the argument that attributes long hours directly

to the diligence and loyalty which are "inherent" in the Japanese, as mentioned in the first section of this chapter, is not very convincing. In this respect, the following

opinion of Ronald Dore's is right: Even though we can find Confucian work ethics and sense of values in the Japanese way of working, phenomena that have their roots in cultural traditions "cannot be sustained within societies without being reinforced by _

contemporary institutions."115 Results of several surveys show that it is not persuasive to explain Japanese

overworking solely as a manifestation of inherent diligence and loyalty. "Survey on Japanese employment practices and values regarding work" by the Ministry of Labor (1986) asks what is the raison d'etre of the Japanese. In the age group between 30 and 34, the frequency of the answer "work" amounts to 22.1%, while the answer "family"

amounts to 45.0%. The order of these answers, however, is reversed around 45 years

115Ronald P. Dore, Boeki Masatsu no Shakai-gaku, trans. Tamaru Nobuo _ (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1986), 49. This is quoted from the Japanese translation version; in the original paper, Dore mentions as follows: One must not ignore these cultural differences if one is to explain differences in economic performance.. . . How far are the differences concomitant with, or reinforced by, differences in contemporary institutions? [Dore, "Authority and Benevolence: the Confucian Recipe for Industrial Success," Government and Opposition Vol. 20 No. 2 (Spring 1985), 203]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. old: in the age group between 45 and 49, the former answer reaches 38.3% while the latter declines to 35.1%. A similar tendency is observed in a survey of employees who

belong to an industrial federation of labor unions116. This survey asks to which area of life (whether work or leisure/family life) they want to attach more importance. In all age groups, the majority answer "attaching as much importance to work as to

leisure/familylife" amounts to 50-70%. The proportion of those who want "to attach

more importance to leisure/family life" declines as subjects grow older; it amounts to 46.2% in the age group below 24, 15.9% between 40 and 44, and 11.9% above 45.

Conversely, the number of those who want "to attach more importance to work," which is less than 10% in younger age groups, increases to 14.8% between 40 and 44,

and 23.6% above 45. Fukuda, who termed this tendency "postnatal workaholic,"

explains that "as employees grow older, workaholism becomes worse; the decease appears between 40 and 44 years old and becomes serious above 45 years old."117 These survey data imply that the sense of values that regards work as the raison d'etre

is largely formed in the course of workers' lifetimes, through their work experiences in companies. Consequently, such cultural explanations as "the inherent diligence" are

not persuasive.

i i6Fukuda Yoshitaka, "Nihon ni okeru Rodosha Ishiki no Henka to Shugyo Kodo eno Eikyo," in Global Jidai no Rodo to Seikatsu. ed. Takenaka Emiko (Kyoto: Minerva-shobo, 1993), 49-73. According to Fukuda, the industry surveyed here is a major industry in Japan which has led the formation of Japanese-style management. Therefore "it is supposed that those who work in this industry can be most extensively conscious of various aspects of Japanese-style management." (Ibid., 70)

ll7Ibid., 51.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Another survey, comparing "work centrality" of seven nations, got similar

results118. Higher work centrality indicates that work occupies a more important position in people's daily life. The work centrality of the Japanese is the highest of all

peoples as Chart 3-1 and 3-2 show. Furthermore, Chart 3-3 shows how work

centrality of each people changes according to age. The work centrality of Japanese males increases markedly in their twenties and continues to increase gradually until - their fifties. In other words, their work centrality strikingly increases within several

years of graduating from high schools or universities and getting job. Misumi,

interpreting this result, concludes as follows:

The place that develops "Japanese (male) workers" is the shokuba or place of work where they live as certain professionals, rather than family life before the age of nineteen and other social lives. It is the structure of places of work that directly shapes working Japanese.119 As this survey indicates, Japanese workers show high "work centrality" which can be

supposed to be both a cause and an effect of their working long hours. And it seems that this characteristic is developed and reinforced by their experiences in their places

of work. In the next chapter, therefore, the mechanism whereby this work centrality

has been reinforced by Japanese management structures will be examined by linking

the approaches in the field of economics with cultural/sociological approaches as

mentioned before.

118Misumi Jiyuji, Hatakukoto no Imi: MOW no Kokusai Hikaku Kenkyu (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1987) and Misumi Jiyuji, "Hatarakukoto no Imi: Kokusai Hikaku," in Nihon no Kigyo System Vol. 3, Jinteki Shigen, eds. Itami Noriyuki, Kagono Tadao and Ito Motoshige (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1993).

119Misumi, "Hatarakukoto no Imi: Kokusai Hikaku," 227.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 4

AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

So far economics approaches focusing on the "coercion" of long working hours (Chapter 2) and cultural/sociological approaches which emphasize the "voluntary" aspect of the problem (Chapter 3) have been examined. In this final chapter, an

alternative approach which pays more attention to workers' psychology and work ethics is presented. This is an inquiry into "the force of will which makes workers

work so hard" on the one hand, and "the feeling of intolerance which inevitably accompanies such a will to work" on the other.120 Here the mixture of coercive and voluntary overworking is reconsidered largely from the "voluntary" perspective.

1) "Voluntary" working derived from willingness for work The most notable feature of the problem of Japanese working long hours is, as emphasized in the chapters above, that it cannot be simply attributed to "coercion" by

management systems and institutions. Though some economists and political scientists present such propositions as "half-voluntary" overworking stemming from the

"nobody-could-replace-me" mentality of workers, the frame of analyses has remained within the coercion logic: workers are "forced" to accept long hours under Japanese management systems, they argue. Do workers just follow norms which are created and maintained by the institution and play the role given to them? In this respect, it should

120Kumazawa, Hatarakimonotachi Naki Egao, i.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. be noticed that "it is not that corporate employees are casted a magic spell," and "though the structure continues to bind individuals, the man-made structure can be changed in the long run if everyone tries to change it."121 An individual is not a mere passive existence but possesses the ability to change past institutions through

interaction: as institutions affect and change individuals, individuals can also affect and change institutions. In this sense, the present working conditions of Japanese workers,

including powerless labor unions which do not regulate long working hours, is "chosen" by workers.

A similar recognition is expressed by Robert Cole in his analyses of worker

participation in small-group activities such as quality circles. He criticizes the conclusion that it is a simple case of coercion by management, stating that

Coercion as an explanation, while appealing to neo-Marxist scholars, underestimates both Japanese management and workers. It underestimates management's understanding that workers must desire the outcomes sought by management or they will not occur.. . . Viewed from still another angle, the coercion explanation underestimates the ability of workers to manipulate management directives to serve their own purposes. They are skillful in phrasing the solutions they want in the workshop in the language of management.122

121Tominaga, "Mou Kodo Seicho wa Iranai," 23. Tominaga maintains that, the overwork in modem Japan is a structural phenomenon observed in organizations and is basically practiced "voluntarily" as a consequence of Japanese diligence. He further explains, using the sociological concept of "role" activity, that it is hard for individuals to escape from the binding force of the structural phenomenon, even though the structure was originally created by individuals of their own free will (Ibid.).

I22Robert E. Cole, "Some Cultural and Social Bases of Japanese Innovation: Small-Group Activities in Comparative Perspective," in The Political Economy of Japan VoL 3 Cultural and Social Dynamics, eds. Kumon Shunpei and Henry Rosovsky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 297.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. If we assume that workers have the ability to affect, change and manipulate

management directives, management's "coercion" should rather be seen as "inducement" of workers' voluntary will, hi order to analyze this ingenious mechanism

of inducement, we should examine workers' psychology itself and thereby reveal why

workers accept the present situation in general and what sort of benefit they get, or * expect to get, in particular.

What, then, is the workers psychology from which their voluntary hard work

derives? As Freyssenet states,

[I]t is one of the general and crucial characteristics of the Japanese wage labor system to draw out workers' efficient drive to work not only in completing the product schedule but in improving their performance.123

The workers' strong drive or will to work, which has been "drawn out" by the

management system, is the reason why half-voluntary overwork is prevalent in Japanese workplaces. The point is that many workers feel that their work is worth

doing and can be their raison d'etre and consequently, their will to work has been considerably intensified. As noted in the first chapter, "overwork" here means that

people work more (longer) than the level at which primary ends are served. Although the notion of work as something which achieves a higher standard of living has already

123Michel Freyssenet, "Nihon Rodosha: Kozo-ka sareta Kinro Iyoku," trans. Saito Hideharu, Gendai Shiso (December 1993), 182. Freyssenet tries to analyze the ways of drawing out the will to work in relation to organizations and institutions and in historical context. Saito Hideharu, who translated the paper by Freyssenet into Japanese, comments as follows: Freyssenet's analysis questions how institutions as a whole function through interactions between them and the collective presentations/actions of social actors. This methodology is worthy of note. (Ibid., 185) In my paper, a model of the mechanism by which the workers' will to work is intensified is shown in a rather static manner. A more dynamic analysis in "historical context," such as Freyssenet's, is needed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. been lost, workers still continue to work long hours. This sort of work should be seen as "work for its own sake."124 In other words, workers regard work more from a

semantic perspective rather than an economic perspective: they consider work not only as a means by which they earn their living and realize an affluent life, but also as

an end in itself such as getting a sense of fulfillment and laison d'etre. Overwork occurs as a result of people's excessive adaptation to this semantic aspect of work.

Work that has become an end in itself draws out the workers' drive to work to an unlimited extent. Such an attitude "leads workers to persistent devotion to working which appears as enthusiasm and diligence."125

"Humane personnel management which consumes much time and energy" under

Japanese-style management is merely "a condition required for developing and intensifying the 'corporate consciousness' of workers," and not the origin of workers'

sense of belonging and loyalty126. The origin is the work itself which workers feel worth doing. Since workers can find worthiness in work activities, even though such recognition is an illusion, they develop a strong commitment and sense of belonging to

the job or the company. On the other hand, since the flexible production system of

l24Sugimura, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika, 21.

125Ibid., 4.

126Fukuda, "Nihon ni okeru Rodosha Ishiki no Henka to Shugyo Kido eno Eikyo," 54-55. Fukuda points out that workers' sense that their job(work) is worth doing is "the starting point from which both labor and management organize workers," and that "labor and management have been in a dead heat" in their efforts to give workers such a sense (Ibid., 55). As a result of this "dead heat," workers, at least so far, have been backing management rather than their labor unions. Remember the comment by Watanabe, quoted in Chapter 2 of this paper, that "workers have preferred the management side to the (militant) union based on 'cool'judgment." (Watanabe, "Gendai Shihon-shugi to Nihon-gata Kigyo Shakai no Tokushu-sei," 75)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Japanese corporations is supported by small-group activities such as quality circles, it cannot be continued without workers' active participation and voluntary wall to work.

Accordingly, it is indispensable for management to structure workplaces so that workers can feel that the job is worth doing.127 It should be seen, therefore, that

between workers and companies a sort of give-and-take relationship exists.

Consequently, the following question arises; what are the essential characteristics of work pursued as an end in itself? This point will be addressed in the following section.

2) To "enjoy" working In order to further analyze work considered as an end in itself let's first examine

the structure of activities which serve as their own ends. An Italian scholar Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose argument will be introduced and developed later in this paper,

termed such activities autotelic activities. In bis own words,

An activity was assumed to be autotelic (from the Greek auto = self and telos = goal, purpose) if it required formal and extensive energy output on the part of the actor, yet provided few if any conventional rewards.128 Adopting this definition, from now on we shall refer to "activity for its own sake" and "activity as an end in itself' as "autotelic activity."

A typical autotelic activity is "play" which can "absorb the player intensely and utterly" though "it is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can

127Ibid. 54.

128Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety; The Experience of Play in Work and Games (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Inc. and London: Jossey-Bass Limited, 1975), 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. be gained by it."129 Characteristics of play explained by Huizinga can be summarized

as follows: 1) Play is free, and in fact freedom. Play is a voluntary activity.

2) Play is not "ordinary" or "real" life. 3) Play is secluded and limited. Play is played out within certain limits of time

and place. 4) Play creates order, and play is order.130 Roger Caillois, who further developed Huizinga's conceptualization of play, divides the domain of play into four categories, i.e., agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry (simulation), and ilinx (vertigo).131

"Play" as an autotelic activity and the autotelic aspect of work share a similar

structure and characteristics, such as freedom within a certain frame of rules and the

participants' spontaneous will to compete. The following description by Caillois reminds us of the way Japanese workers work:

Play mobilizes the diverse advantages that each can receive from fate, such as the best zeal, unrelenting and imprescriptible chance, audacity to risk and careful calculation, and capacity of conjugating such different sorts of performance...

129 Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (London, Boston and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), 13.

130Ibid., 7-10.

131Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, trans. Meyer Barash (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961), 44.

132Roger Caillois, Asobi to Ningen, trans. Tada Michitaro and Tsukasaki Mikio (Tokyo: Kodan-sha, Kodansha Gakujutsu Bunko, 1990), 25. This part (introduction) is not included in the English translation version (Man, Play, and Games).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Japanese workers try to get the utmost advantage from "imprescriptible chances" like promotion, have "audacity to risk" in self-asscssmcnt meetings, and show their "best

zeal" in achieving their assigned quota. Such a way of working is very similar to what is mobilized in the activity of play.133

I33There are many other similar characteristics shared by Japanese ways of working and play activities explained by Huizinga and Caillois. The following are examples. [1] Huizinga states that, It [play] proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means (Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. 13). This statement reminds me of Japanese workers who "disguise" themselves with the' uniforms and badges of a company and behave "in an orderly manner" "according to fixed rules" of a company, explicit or implicit. [2] In Japanese work activities, Caillois's mimicry (play as a simulation) is sometimes played out. According to one worker who works for a Japanese bank, when the finance division has audits by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan (ookura-kensa and nichigin-fcousa), each of which is held every other year, members of the division experience spiritual elevation. Since these audits give them a chance to show their utmost ability, they "very happily" work overtime every night. They usually earn as much overtime pay as their monthly salary and therefore such conversations as "I bought this jacket with the audit" can be heard. These series of excited events are called ookura-kensa-gokko and nichigin-kousa-gok/co, meaning "playing the audits." (The Japanese word gokko corresponds to Caillois's mimicry.) Huizinga writes, "[T]he contrast between play and seriousness is always fluid," and "[P]lay turns to seriousness and seriousness to play." (Ibid., 8) [3] It can be seen that in a couple-unit-society like Japan (Cf Chapter 3 of this paper), family members as an audience cheer workers who play the competitive game such as the promotion-race among themselves. The audience put more enthusiasm into the game since the players are more delighted when somebody is watching them In a play with a partner or opponent, players are dominated by the competitive instinct, i.e., "the desire to excel others, to be the first and to be honored for that," and "it is very important that the player should be able to boast of his success to others. "(Ibid., 52) It is important, however, to note that both Huizinga and Caillois emphasize that play is unproductive. In other words, these scholars recognize that play is the opposite of work.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While Huizinga and Caillois mainly conceptualize the structure and variety of play, Csikszentmihalyi focuses on the autotelic nature of play. Csikszentmihalyi creates and analyzes a theoretical model of an autotelic experience, that is, "a psychological

state, based on concrete feedback, which acts as a reward in that it produces

continuing behavior in the absence of other rewards."134 He interviewed those who participated in autotelic activities135 and found that they shared a peculiar dynamic

state of psychology. They are given constant challenges without getting bored or worrying about what may happen, make full use of whatever skills required, and

receive clear feedback to their actions. Csikszentmihalyi named such a "holistic

sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement" as flow ,instead of calling ir "an autotelic experience."136 The following are the elements of flow summarized by Csikszentmihalyi:

1) the merging of action and awareness;

2) a centering of attention on a limited stimulus field;

3) loss of ego, self-forgetfulness, loss of self-consciousness, transcendence of individuality, and fusion with the world;

4) being in control of one's actions and of the environment;

134Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. 23. In other words, an autotelic experience is an experience of enjoyment "not as compensation for past desires, not as preparation for future needs, but as an ongoing process which provides rewarding experiences in the present."(Ibid., 9)

135These participants in autotelic activities include sport players, composers, chess champions, surgeons and so on.

136Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. 36.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 4-1: Model of the Flow State

When a person believes that his action opportunities are too demanding for his

capabilities, the resulting stress is experienced as anxiety; when the ratio of capabilities

is higher, but the challenges are still too demanding for his skills, the experience is

worry. The state of flow is felt when opportunities for action are in balance with the

actor’s skills; the experience is then autotelic. When skills are greater than opportunities for using them, the state of boredom results; this state again fades into anxiety when the ratio becomes too large.

Anxiety

ACTION OPPORTUNITIES Worry (CHALLENGES) Boredom

Anxiety

ACTION CAPABILITIES (SKILLS)

Source:Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Bevond Boredom and Anxiety. 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5) containing coherent, noncontradictory demands for action and providing clear, unambiguous feedback to a person's actions; and finally,

6) autotelic nature.137

How, then, can a person experience such a state of flow? Figure 4-1 is a model

of the flow state provided by Csikszentmihalyi The horizontal axis shows the degree of action capabilities (skills) and the vertical axis shows the degree of action

opportunities (challenges). The flow state is expressed as the area between the two slanted lines. Such state is realized when activities provide optimal challenges in

relation to the actor's skills. When an actor believes that the challenge is too

demanding for his capabilities, s/he feels stress such as anxiety and worry. When an actor's skills are greater than opportunities for using them, s/he experiences boredom

and anxiety. Here it is of great importance to understand that "whether one is in flow

or not depends entirely on one's perception of what the challenges and skills are."138

That is, the state of flow does not necessarily reflect the actual levels of challenges and

skills. 139

137Ibid., 68-84.

138Ibid., 50.

139Csikszentmihalyi states that this model of flow state is based on the axiom that, "at any given moment, people are aware of a finite number of opportunities which challenge them to act; at the same time, they are aware also of their skills." (Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, 50) It is the "awareness" and "perception" of actors, rather than objective measures, on which a state of flow depends. However, Csikszentmihalyi also maintains that the prediction as to whether a flow state is brought about will be accurate "only if the individuals involved perceive the difficulties and their own capabilities 'objectively1" and that in such activities as rock climbing and the game of chess we can have fairly objective assessments of both opportunities and the level of skills (Ibid., 51).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 4-2: Two Ways of Experiencing Flow

Chess player A, with x level of skills, playing against someone at level y, will be worried. A person in such a situation can choose a number of ways to reenter the state

of flow. For instance, he can insist on playing only against opponents of skill level x,

or he can increase his own skills to level y; or the opponent can handicap himself until challenges match A's skill level at x. Flow state Ayy is more complex than flow state

Axx since the former involves the use of greater skills in overcoming greater

challenges.

c o ACTION OPPORTUNITIES

t —

oo x y ACTION CAPABILITIES

SourcerMihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. 53.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4-2 shows two typical ways of experiencing flow. In the figure, person A with x level of skills, given y level of challenge, will be worried. Person A can experience flow by lowering the level of challenge to x (Axx) or by improving his/her

skills to y level (Ayy). Flow state Ayy is more complex than the other flow state Axx

since the former requires greater skills in overcoming greater challenges. There are actually a number of ways to enter the state of flow through a combination of these two basic vector processes.140

Csikszentmihalyi asserts that we can experience flow "in any activity, even in some activities that seem least designed to give enjoyment - on the battlefront, on a factory assembly line, or in a concentration camp."141 Moreover he maintains,

. . . there is no unbridgeable gap between "work" and "leisure." Hence, by studying play one might learn how work can be made enjoyable, as in certain cases it clearly is.142

One assumption here is that the autotelic aspect of work whereby workers acquire a

strong will to work can be interpreted as the aspect of work that gives workers a flow

experience. When workers feel that their capabilities fit the level of challenges offered by the job and that totally involve them in job procedures without anxiety, worry or boredom, they can enjoy working. Again, the point is that whether their level of skills and the challenge are balanced is a matter of perception or awareness. Objective

assessment is not necessarily needed. If they can only perceive the balance, they will be

in flow: they will experience the autotelic aspect of work which gives them a strong

140Ibid., 52-53.

14lIbid., 36. In other words, when the activity is structured right, "people enjoy even work, extreme danger, and stress."(Ibid., xiii)

142Ibid., 5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. will to work and a raison d'etre. Why does this occur in work activities? The basic reason is that under the condition that everybody has to work in some form in order to

maintain their life, people try to get a certain sense of fulfillment from work by attaching some meaning to the unavoidable activity143. Work successfully furnished

with some meaning becomes autotelic work, which leads workers to "voluntary" overworking.

With the aforementioned assumption that the autotelic aspect of work is what

brings about a "flow" experience, we will examine another hypothesis below. This is that Japanese management systems have elaborated a way of leading workers to flow.

It seems that the structure of Japanese organizations, including the personnel

assessment system, in fret gives workers flow experiences and consequently generates voluntary overworking.144 As Csikszentmihalyi emphasizes, flow can be achieved

143In examining arguments by T. Veblen, H. Arent, and Eugen Fink, Sugimura Yoshimi emphasizes that the purpose of work is not a priori in its nature: it is given on the basis of the absolute fact that man cannot avoid working. He states, "men furnish work with some purposes in order to make the inevitable activity more attractive." In other words, men "fulfill the hollow part of life with meaning and to get vitality." (Sugimura, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika 178-180)

l44The sense of time that is sometimes experienced by Japanese workers is similar to what one might feel in flow. For instance, the Japanese worker's comment quoted at the beginning of this paper goes, "(without such affirmative thinking,) working time in the kaisha would feel longer." Some dancers interviewed by Csikszentmihalyi told that time seemed to pass both faster and slower than normal when they are dancing. One of them states, It might go slower in terms of living the moment, that I would be more aware of it. But it would go faster in the sense of somebody saying, "it's 12:00," and I feel like we've been there an hour, and we've been there three (Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. 116). Work can also give the same sort of feeling. As explained in Chapter 3 of this paper, Edward T. Hall emphasizes that the Western "monochronic" time mode often breaks up the continuation of creative work in which such a sense of time as in flow

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. without money or physical energy; it can be achieved "through symbolic restructuring of information."145 It is therefore assumed that Japanese-styie management has provided a positive meaning to work activities by symbolically restructuring

information for workers who have responded to such an ingenious management technique. In order to examine this hypothesis, we must begin with the question of what

characteristics and factors of work activities can achieve flow. To put it simply, what makes work become autotelic? Csikszentmihalyi points out the following as the two most basic requirements for flow:

1) a clear set of challenges (challenges of the unknown, which lead to discovery, exploration, problem solution, or the challenge of competition); and

2) a warm feeling of closeness to others (feeling of friendship), or a loosening ef ego boundaries (loss of self-centeredness).146

In work activities too, these two requirements should be satisfied in order for the work to bring about flow: the work should provide challenges which lead to discovery,

experience is realized.

145Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, xiii. Csikszentmihalyi asserts that it is not important whether an activity has external goals/rewards or not. In the field of psychology, many experiments have been done on the relation between external and internal rewards. (For example, see Edward L. Deci, "Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol 18 No. 1 (1971): 105-115.). However, there is no established conclusion on the matter, since both results, Le., more external rewards lead to more internal rewards on the one hand and more external rewards lead to fewer internal rewards on the other, are "proven." In management studies, there are many theories on the effects of external and internal motivations, such as hygiene theory by Herzberg, which have often been criticized for the lack of cross-cultural applicability.

I46Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. 30.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. exploration and problem solution or challenges in which one tries to demonstrate one's ability through competitions; the work should also give "a loosening of ego

boundaries" by means of friendly relationships with those one contacts and

communicates with through the job. While the former requirement concerns the

chance of showing one's individual ability, the latter implies the formation of or

changes in, one's identity through human relationships. They can be expressed as the self-identification (the former) and mutual-identification (the latter) aspects of work

activities. These correspond to the following two of "three features of professions"

pointed out by Odaka Kunio: demonstration of individuality and realization of solidarity.147 The former is realized through self-achievement and demonstration of one's ability in work activities and the latter is realized when the work is evaluated as playing a certain role in the corporate/social system. Now that we have assumed that

these two factors comprise the autotelic aspect of work, the hypothesis that Japanese- style management has achieved "flow" in work activities will be developed in the next

section.

1470daka Kunio, Shokugyo Shakai-gaku (Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten, 1941), cited in Sugimura, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika, 80- 83. Another feature of professions mentioned by Odaka is the means of livelihood. While this factor is the "purposive" aspect of work, demonstration of individuality and realization of solidarity are the "semantic" aspects of work. According to Sugimura Yoshimi, Odaka's views on work are similar to David Riesman's insight into the "autotelic" aspect of work. Riesman asserts that the semantic aspect of work lies in the fun of work and the interest in work and that work enrichment through reorganizing monotonous work is required for achieving a more humanelife. This work enrichment leads to the demonstration of various capabilities of individuals ("demonstration of individuality" by Odaka) as well as encouraging them to work by having them experience role-sharing and responsibilities for cooperation ("realization of solidarity"). (Ibid.)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FIGURE 4-3: Model o f Autotelic (Flow) Work

Job Capa.bi(if\'esCSkills)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3) A "flow" model of Japanese-style management Figure 4-3, created based on the flow model by Csikszentmihalyi, shows the

ways of achieving flow in work activities. The horizontal axis shows the degree of

capabilities of workers who work in a Japanese corporation and the vertical axis corresponds to opportunities given to them. As mentioned above, these "capabilities"

and "opportunities" are subjectively judged by workers themselves; they are not always objectively measured. We have two workers A and B who are at present positioned at AO and BO respectively. They are not experiencing flow so fin. In these

cases, how does Japanese-style management make them experience flow? Let's first examine the case of worker A. In this case, A feels that he is only given easy

challenges that do not match his capabilities. As he recognizes that the job in hand is trivial in a sense, he is experiencing a sort of boredom. In order for A to experience

flow, there are two possibilities shown as arrows (1) and (2) in the figure. Arrow (1)*

means that worker A is given more difficult opportunities and will experience flow at

point A1 as a result. In the other case, case (2), his capabilities decrease to put him at point A2.

In Japanese corporations, the former way (1) is usually adpted in order to give

flow experiences to workers like A. There are several ways of achieving this. First, the internal promotion system established on the basis of long-term employment and the

seniority system allows workers to feel that the level of their job opportunities is definitely increased. Workers are given more difficult challenges through promotion to higher positions.148

i i8Here it is not of great importance whether the job given at the higher position is actually more challenging than the former job. The worker perceives that the new job is more challenging since s/he knows, for instance, that the job of a chief director is assumed to be more difficult than that of a section chief Such an

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Job enlargement and enrichment other than promotion also have similar effects.

Tn Japanese corporations, in particular, voluntary job enlargement/enrichment by a worker can occur without his/her superior's specific instructions. This is because actual job division among members is not clear. The job is often distributed to the

group (such as division, section, and team) as a whole. While each worker is in charge of his/her own share of the work, s/he does not recognize that this is all of his/her

responsibility. "Cooperative working" becomes general in which workers complete the

job with help from each other. Under such a "flexible structure"149 there arises, so to speak, "non-limitation of responsibility" and "unlimitedness of duty."150 Workers are to enlarge and/or enrich their job even when remaining in the same post. Since a clear

job description is not prescribed at the time of employment, it is natural to help a peer who has too much work to complete by himself To perform more work and a more difficult job on one's own initiative will prove that one is an able worker151. Koike

"assumption" is indicated by the differences in external rewards (wages) as well as the formal job classification.

149Kumazawa Makoto. Nihon no Rodosha-zo (Tokyo: Chikuma-shobo, 1981).

150Iwata Ryushi, Nihon-teki Keiei no Hensei Genri (Tokyo: Bunshin-do, 1977).

151A specialist in Japanese management study Mito Tadashi asserts that this ambiguity of the Japanese job contract is derived from the difference in organizing principles of Japanese and Western corporations: the Japanese are "belonging-type organizations" and the Western ones are "contract-type organizations." Representatives of the former are military organizations worldwide. Workers in Japan first "belong" to corporations and then are given some job there. [Mito Tadashi, "Soshiki no Nihon-gata Model to Oubei-gata Model," in Nihon-teki Shudan-sbugL ed. Hamaguchi Eshun and Kumon Shunpei (Tokyo: Yuhikaku Sensho, 1982)]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kazuo insists that this flexible division of labor is "the wisdom of work groups" which

stems from traditions and practices within Japanese workplaces152. Furthermore, the self-assessment system in quota setting has the effect of

increasing job opportunities. Workers declare that they will be able to achieve a higher level of quota by using and elaborating their own skills. Thus they pull up the level of opportunities by themselves so as to match their capabilities. However, it should be

added that this system can result in increasing the level of opportunities beyond the optimum "flow" level. It can be done "voluntarily," as mentioned in the second chapter.

Turning to the case of worker B, we see an employee who is feeling anxiety or

worry since it is perceived that the job opportunity at point BO is beyond his/her capability. In Figure 4-3, the ways of achieving flow are shown by the two arrows (>) and (4). Arrow (3) shows B's capability being increased to reach point B 1. The other

way (4) requires that B be given an easier challenge to experience flow at point B2. It

is assumed that the former way, increasing workers' capabilities, has been undertaken within Japanese corporations. Before examining the ways of doing this, we should

recognize that work "capability" has different implications in Japanese corporations in comparison with, for instance, American corporations. That is, Japanese workers are

l52Koike Kazuo, Shokuba no Rodo Kumiai to Sanka: Roshi Kankei no Nichibei Hikaku (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo-sha, 1977), 194. Hashimoto Juro insists that such an ambiguous division of labor among Japanese workers has not been intentionally created. When Japanese corporations introduced Taylorism division of labor, they had to operate under such conditions as the small size of the domestic market, the strong support for equality of men, and an early agreement between capital and labor on giving priority to the stability of employment. These initial conditions thereafter directed the characteristics of the division of labor, Hashimoto maintains. [Hashimoto Juro, "Nihon-gata Bungyo System no Keisei: Takumazaru rYawaraka-nal Kigyo/Sagyo-ba nai Bungyo to 'Ito sareta Keikaku-teki-na' Kigyo-kan Bungyo," Business Review VoL 40 No. 2 (1992): 32-49.]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. required to have capabilities for dealing with human relations as well as skills in handling the job itself Kazaina Hiroshi who terms the former capabilities "social skills" in contrast with the latter "technical skills1' asserts that social skills, Le., "skills in controlling human relations by understanding the subtleties of human nature," are required for managers in particular.153

What are the measures undertaken in practice by Japanese corporations to

increase the capabilities of workers? The first way is to establish intra-comapny education/training systems such as OJT. Job training is the main means of increasing

"technical skills" by improving and elaborating the skills required for each job. Secondly, both the reshuffling of personnel and the promotion system, which characterise long-term employment, have the effect of increasing the capabilities of workers in general, and "social skills" in particular. Let's first look at reshuffling. Japanese corporations typically adopt a reshuffling system in which workers

accumulate knowledge and experiences in many different kinds of job. Workers are

expected to be "generalists" who can behave and think as representatives of the whole

company. This is so-called "holographic management."154 It is the way of developing

153Hazama, Nihon-teki Keiei: Shudan-shugi no KouzaL 29. Another scholar Miyamoto Mitsuharu calls the former capabilities "social expertise ( shakaiteki- jukuren)" based on an understanding of human relations and behaviors in the place of "cooperative working," and the latter capabilities "technical knowledge" required for each type of work. According to Miyamoto, from the standpoint of human capital, the former corresponds to "cultural capital," which embodies company-peculiar behavioral/thought patterns, and the latter is "technical capital," which embodies technical knowledge and experiences. [Miyamoto Mitsuharu, Hito to Soshiki no Shakai Keizai-gaku (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo-sha, 1987), 161.]

154The term holographic management comes from holography which uses a lenseiess camera to record information in a way that stores the whole in all the parts. This technology demonstrates that "it is possible to create processes where the whole can be encoded in all the parts, so that each and every part represents the whole." *

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. workers "technical skills" most peculiar to Japanese corporations. A more important

aspect is the way it raises workers "social skills." Through experiencing many different workplaces, workers can establish "relations of acquaintanceship"155 with other

workers on whom they can rely. Such human relations become important "intangible assets"156 of workers. Even though a worker does not surpass others in technical skills, s/he can perceive that his/her capabilities are definitely increased by improving social skills such as in persuading superiors and mobilizing subordinates based on good

human relations.

In regard to the promotion system, the Japanese style's peculiarity lies in its "late promotion" mode whereby workers are not really differentiated based on their

achievement or capabilities during the first ten years or so after enrollment. Under this system, many workers have chances to improve their skills during "the grace period,"

since they are rather equally given education and training opportunities. Moreover, the

late promotion has another effect; it makes workers believe that their own capability is not inferior to others and/or is improving. More precisely, the late promotion system, which promotes most workers who enrolled in the company in the same year at the same time, has the following latent effect:

[Gareth Morgan, Images o f Organization(Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1986), 80.] In holographic management, every worker who embodies the whole company principle, culture, behavioral patterns and so on will behave and think in a manner that represents the whole.

155Iwata, "Kokusai Hikaku Keiei no Bunseki Wakugumi."

l56Iwata, Nihon-teki Keiei no Hensei Genii 67.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It keeps information on workers capabilities secret, makes them believe in the „ possibility of promotion, and as a result gives them incentives to make utmost efforts in improving their skills 157

The third way of increasing workers capabilities is small-group activities such as

QC circles. The small-group activities have the effect of increasing the technical skills of participants by developing more knowledge and skills than those demanded in their daily work. For instance, kaizen in auto factories "requires knowledge about statistics

and technologies,” and consequently "line workers broaden their knowledge."158 Besides improving technical skills, small-group activities also have the effect of promoting social skills. A survey on QC activity by Lincoln and Kalleberg, introduced

by Suzuki Yoshiji, proves this. According to the results of this survey, the most significant aspect of QC activity in terms of its effects on workers job satisfaction is "improving human relations in workplaces" rather than its "autonomy" and "complexity." Suzuki explains,

Through QC activities those workers who rarely discuss daily operations share face-to-face discussions and cooperate with each other. This improves human relations among peers as well as between superior and subordinates.159

Such an effect is exactly the improvement in social skills.

157Ito Hideshi, "Incentive to Nihon-gata Koyo 'System'," Business Review Vol. 40 No. 4(1993), 15.

158Mine Manabu, "Sagyo Soshiki to Roshi Kankei: Nihon no Jidosha Sangyo no Baai," Shakai Rodo Kenkyu VoL 41 No. 1 and 2 (1994), 71. Another example is introduced by Tsuji Katsuji. When a revised plan for a robot program was adopted by a QC circle, the participating line workers also joined the following practical procedure which was usually done by maintenance workmen. Through this process, workers "as a group" acquired knowledge on robot technology (Tsuji Katsuji, "Jidosha Kojo ni okeru 'Shudan-teki Jukuren' no Kino Keitai to sono Keisei Kiko (Chu)," Ritsumeikan Sangyo Shakai Ronshu VoL 25 No. 2 (September 1989), 7-8).

159Suzuki, Nihon-teld Seisan System to Kigyo Shakai. 164.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4) Characteristics of the Japanese system In the former section, how the Japanese management systems help workers achieve flow and make work autotelic is examined based on the C sikszentmih alyi's .

flow model. Let's now summarize the characteristics of the Japanese management system from a different angle. Various Japanese management systems such as the

cooperative working principle, the intra-company promotion system under long-term employment and a seniority system, reshuffling and generalist raising, education and training system, and small-group activities give workers "flow" by: (1) providing workers with more challenging work; and/or

(2) improving workers capabilities (technical and social skills).

As a result of experiencing flow, the workers' will to work is strengthened so much

that they often "voluntarily" overwork, hi comparison with Western corporations such as those in America, the most peculiar characteristics of the Japanese style lie in the following two points:

( 1) the aforementioned two ways of achieving flow have been achieved within each company; and

(2) the notion of workers' "capabilities" includes their social skills in handling human relations and they are expected to improve to bring about flow.

As regards the first characteristic, it would be usual in America for a worker who is not experiencing flow to take up a different job that will give him flow. In Japan such job-hopping does not prevail Instead, workers seek flow experiences within a company. Companies have succeeded to a great extent in leading workers to flow by giving more challenging opportunities and by improving their capabilities. This

characteristic of Japanese-style management fulfills one of the most basic requirements for achieving autotelic work, i.e., giving a clear set of challenges which leads to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. discovery, exploration, and problem solution, as was mentioned in the second section of this chapter. Flow is brought about by providing workers with the means of "self- identification" such as the demonstration of individual ability.

The second characteristic is more important in understanding the peculiarity of Japanese-style management. Workers flow experiences have also been achieved through the improvement of social skills. The significance of this characteristic is twofold. Firstly, it fulfills another basic requirement for achieving autotelic work, that

is, to meet workers "mutual-identification" need through loosening of ego boundaries. As workers accumulate good human relations between themselves and peers,

superiors as well as business partners, they will experience the transformation of their

identity and the feeling of solidarity. For example, QC activities "reduce a sense of alienation in line work and meet the human need to work at least pleasantly with fellow workers, to show one's capabilities on the job and to be approved of by others."160 Workers, as a result, will be convinced that nobody can really take their place; they are needed in the workplace, they feel.

To be precise, one can say that the "loosening of ego boundaries" is in fact an

essential of Japanese-style management. The realization of flow on the basis of worker solidarity does not necessarily require such management systems as reshuffling,

promotion and small-group activities. It is, in the first place, expected to be achieved

through the "cooperative working" principle as well as Japanese-style intra-company communications. As for cooperative working, it is not limited to practical on-the-job cooperation. It also means shared understanding on the job and on other things

160Tsuji Katsuji, "Jidosha Kojo ni okeru 'Shudan-teki Jukuren' no Kino Keitai to sono Keisei Kiko (Chu)," 13-14. Tsuji calls such an effect "human and independent factor of QC."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. regarding workplaces. Cooperative working as an organizing principle of labor is

"based on the relations ( zusammenhang) of meanings embodied in activities," and thus includes "understanding of the goals to be achieved by each function" as well as

"understanding of the value to be pursued through achieving such goals.”161 Under such a form of work connectivity based on the "relations of meanings," the workers'-

need for mutual-identification is apt to be both promoted and fulfilled. That is, cooperative working both demands and generates solidarity among workers, which

accompanies the "loss of self-centeredness." This loss of self-centeredness is the very reason for the collectivistic overworking which can be described as "for all they're worth."

In addition to this cooperative working, the workers' solidarity in Japanese

corporations is achieved through various forms of communication among workers,

formal or informal. It is said that Japanese corporate organizations have rhizome-type structure when compared with the Western tree-type structure. In rhizome-type organizations, each part, while maintaining its originality, is intricately entangled with

every other and is integrated as a whole162. Such "rhizomes" are formed and entangled based on various factors such as having graduated from the same university, living together in a dormitory for employees, commuting from the same area, having worked together at one time, and so on. Informal communications play an important role in

161Miyamoto, Hito to Soshiki no Shakai Keizai-gaku. 163. The relations of meanings mentioned here include such aspects as "the way each individual should ordinarily behave, implicit agreements, common sense of values, and understanding of practices and rules in the place of cooperative working." (Ibid.)

162Iwata Ryushi, "Nihon-teki Keiei Soshiki no Dynamism," in Nihon-teki Shudan-shugL ed. Hamaguchi Eshun and Kumon Shunpei (Tokyo: Yuhikaku Sensho, 198), 186.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. developing such networks and linkages. Thus both official and private after-hours socializing among workers such as the aforementioned "gray activities" becomes

prevalent. Developing such networks benefits workers in a practical sense, of course. That

is, through participating in various "rhizome" networks, workers can obtain

information useful for carrying out their jobs. And it counts, for, as Mho insists, "personnel evaluation of whether a worker is able or not takes account of as its basis,

the differences in these informal communications networks."163 However, such an extrinsic reward is of secondary importance; another aspect, an intrinsic reward

brought about by informal communications, is more essential. That is, a sense of solidarity. Fellowship is developed through half-private communications kept at a certain distance from formal job linkages, rather than cooperative working in official

workplaces. In Murakami Yasusuke's words, the information shared through such half-private communications is "intrinsic or consummatory information" which is distinguished from "instrumental or extrinsic information." The former is information

whose possession has an intrinsic value, whereas the latter is information which is useful for some other purposes.164 This distinction corresponds to "immunity-type

communication" and "nerve-type communication" in Nishiyama Kenichi's terms165. In

163Mito, "Soshiki no Nihon-gata Model to Oubei-gata Model," 113-114.

164Murakami Yasusuke, "Han-Kotenteki Houhou Josetsu," in Manifest: Atarashii Keizai-gaku. ed. Murakami Yasusuke, Nishiyama Ken'ichi, and Tanaka Tatsuo (Tokyo: Chuo Koron-sha, 1994), 37-39.

165The function of immunity is to enrich images within a body (internal images) toward environments (external world) and consequently to make it possible to quickly/adequately adopt and respond to changes occurring outside. The immunity system rather than the nerve system plays an important role in maintaining life. Nishiyama, a specialist in both biology and management study, asserts that informal

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sum, it is peculiar to Japanese intra-company communications that the former type of information, "intrinsic or consummately'" and "immunity-type" information is shared

among workers. These communications have intrinsic value such as a sense of

solidarity and fellowship; spending time together itse lf \s important.

Thus far the first significance (meeting the "mutual-identification" need of workers) of the second characteristic of Japanese management (flow is achieved through improving workers1 social skills) has been explained. Now we will examine ~

another significance of this characteristic. Increasing the level of opportunities and improving workers' technical skills are the means of achieving flow whereby workers' subjective perceptions are assumed to correlate highly with objective reality. In

comparison, increasing social skills as the means of achieving flow has few objective standards other than workers' arbitrary judgments. Therefore, it is more likely that workers hopefully believe that social skills have been improved or are improving.

Furthermore they can be rather optimistic about skill improvements in future, too. Simply put, social skills are, and are considered to be, easily obtained by even

"ordinary" workers when compared with technical skills in each job. In Japanese corporations, it is possible to succeed if workers only make an effort to develop human relations and networks. At least, in workers eyes it appears so. In this regard, Japanese corporations have created "the system in which not only the small 'elite' portion of workers but 'ordinary people' can experience the joy of work."166 Workers

communications within organizations play immunity-like functions, supplementing formal communications by the nerve-system. See Nishiyama Ken'ichi, Men'elri Network no Jidai: Fukuzatsu-kei de Yomu Gendai (Tokyo: Nihon Hoso Shuppan Kyokai, NHK Books, 1995).

166Hashimoto Juro, "Hatarakigai wo Built-in shita System daga," Economist Rinji-Zokan (31 August, 1992), 78.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. might hold such a hope for success even though they know that it is an illusion, since they want to find significance and meaning in work activities. Sugiinura states as follows, touching on the notion of "vocation" by Ortega:

What "program" does a man hope to be played in the theater of his own life? A man, "even though he is miserably mired in labor and unwilling work, must project another image of life by an illusion that transcends such a reality."167

Men get vitality by giving work activities the significant "end" that allows them to find

joy in work itself rather than doing inevitable activities only as a means to an end. In

this way men wish to work pleasantly, delightfully and enjoyably, if it's possible. The phenomenon of overworking (and the long hours as a manifestation) observed in

Japanese companies comes about by fulfilling such a worker's desire for illusion. This is the true character of what Kumazawa calls "the force of will which makes workers work so hard," as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

5) Sources of "hidden" coercion Then how is another element of workers' psychology pointed out by Kumazawa,

a "feeling of intolerance inevitably accompanied by the strong will to work," brought about? As was mentioned in the second chapter, approaches in the field of economics would emphasize that management systems are cleverly engineered to bring workers "flow" and consequently to force them to overwork. Therefore the voluntary will of

workers to work is usually interpreted as occurring under "false consciousness."168

167Sugimura, Datsu Kindai no Rodo-kan: Ningen ni totte Rodo towa Nanika. 178.

168Kyotani Eiji, "Nihon-teki Rodo Katei no Flexible System towa Nanika," Mado Vol. 11 (Spring 1992). Kyotani maintains that Japanese management has developed workers "voluntary" work attitude by giving them a limited autonomy, utilizing semi-autonomous work groups as well as small-group activities. Workers, as

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although the coercion factor as an undercurrent should not be ignored, it would be better to understand that the coercion force is intensified when combined with social factors, Le., characteristics of Japanese society. The coercion aspect of the problem

will be examined in this section with an emphasis on sources of "hidden coercion.” First and foremost, we should pay attention to ostracism Unless you accept the above-mentioned system of "flow" work, seek solidarity among workers in

cooperation with your superior and fellow workers, and actively try to demonstrate your capabilities within a company, you will be both explicitly and implicitly excluded

as an outsider. Since Japanese workers do recognize this, there is little room for choice other than obeying the majority. Suzuki Yoshiji emphasizes this aspect. The

management "virtually eliminates choices other than contributing to the organization" and further "encourages workers to choose the only way, devotion to the company." This results in a sort of voluntary working. In this sense, the voluntary choice of workers "embodies de-facto coercion."169 Coriat expresses a similar recognition as he

describes the character of Japanese management as a combination of "ostracism and democracy" which "cleverly combines processes of inclusion and exclusion."170 In a

case described by Kumazawa171, one worker is ostracized in such ways as being given an unaccustomed job with few instructions as well as being isolated from other

workers. These are the opposite of the ways of achieving flow in work activities. That

a result, have false consciousness that a compromise (in the "regulation" economics sense) has been reached.

169Suzuki, Nihon-teki Seisan System to Kigyo Shakai, 168.

170Coriat. Gvakuten no Shiko: Nihon Kigyo no Rodo to Soshiki, 170-179.

171Kumazawa, Nihon-teki Keiei no Meian.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. is, the management prevents the worker from experiencing flow by giving him an opportunity which does not match his capability and by decreasing his social skill, i.e.,

isolating him in the workplace. As Kumazawa asserts, "a company can raise both a prizewinner in the International Vocational Training Competition and a 'typical

incompetent worker* from the same human resource."172 In this respect, cooperative,

working has a negative effect, ie., the tendency to generate group pressure, in

addition to the aforementioned positive effects. Small-group activities could have a

similar effect. While they increase the solidarity of work groups, coercive force might

be generated as each participant cannot help but accept the agreement reached as a result of group discussions173.

Here I would like to emphasize a social factor which promotes the tendency toward conformity. Contextualism as an organizing principle of society increases the fear applied to workers by group pressures and potential ostracism As was discussed

in the third chapter, "man" in the Japanese context is a referential subject which

subsumes "relations of consciousness" with others and consequently exclusion from a

group will bring about a serious crisis of one's identity. Thus the coercive force

generated through group activities and cooperative working binds workers more

172Ibid., p.34. The worker introduced by Kumazawa is a prizewinner in the competition.

l73Tsuji Katsuji recognizes that QC and teian (proposal) activities are important systems which support a Japanese-particular way of developing skilled workers (Tsuji, "Jidosha Kojo ni okeru 'Shudan-teki Jukuren' no Kino Keitai to sono Keisei Kiko (Chu)). The Toyotism way of developing skilled workers is characterized by "collectivistic skills" which consists of "skills as a group" and "skills for a group. "(Tsuji a, pp.31-32) In addition to the effect of increasing technical skills, QC* promotes solidarity of a group through "repeated group discussions." (Ibid., 12) Tsuji, however, emphasizes the aspect of "coercion" by group pressure rather than the positive effect of high solidarity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. strongly than in other societies. Workers take a great risk of losing or damaging his/her own identity. Ostracism becomes more influential in this environment.

The second source of "hidden coercion" is related to the masculine nature of

Japanese society. It is assumed that the worker's desire for the illusion that nobody can take his place and that he is needed by others is particularly strong in Japanese

workers. The reason is that it is difficult to have such a consciousness other than in

work activities, for example, in regional community activities, religious activities, and even in family relations. Regional communities don't function as much as in other

societies and people have had little interest in religions. How about family affairs? The

following episode explains the reality. There was an American professional baseball player who had played several years in the Japanese league. After his great contribution to the team in winning the championship, he was confronted with a

problem; his son became seriously ill. After all, he chose to take care of his son in the U.S. since the team did not allows him to take a leave. At that time the player said,

Japanese people believe that the company would not function well without him/her. It's not true. Someone can take the job instead of you. Even the president can be replaced. But one has no alternative to your own son. Family is more important.

In comparison, when a Japanese baseball player became qualified as a free agent, he decided to play with the same team. At that time he said, "I was moved by the

management's words convincing me that the team needed me by all means." It seems that the difference between the two comments lies in their views on raison d'etre. The

American player emphasized that there was no alternative to him in the family, and the Japanese player attached great importance to the fact that he was irreplaceable as a player in the team. However, the point is that in Japan men should show their

importance in the workplace if they want to feel that they are important members of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the family. A fundamental reason for this is the society's masculinity; the division of labor between the sexes generates an implicit pressure. As a man (male), you should demonstrate your ability in the job174.

Finally, the third source of "hidden coercion" is the phenomenon of alienation in play and communication. As has been mentioned above, one of the causes of long working hours in Japan is that communication as a mutual-identification activity is

achieved in work experiences which lead to autotelic working through the solidarity of

workers. In a sense, "work as communication" is achieved in Japanese companies. The problem is that "there is no place where people can feel that they are spending a full

life other than in workplaces."175 It is supposed that several conditions have made it more difficult for workers to get "a sense of solidarity" except in work activities: play activities have become mere consumption; communication activities are carried out *

merely as a means. Play and communication are losing their "autotelic" nature even though people's need for autotelic communication is increasing. Ozeki Shuji analyzes morbid phenomena in current Japanese society such as the phenomenon of otaku176,

the problem of excessive dieting and the issue of bullying, and concludes as follows:

174A song entitled "Kanpaku-Sengen" was very popular in Japan some ten years ago. It was a really "masculine" song in which a man says what is necessary for his lover to be a devoted wife. The words include: Please don't forget that a man who does not do well in work can never protect his family.

I75Kato Kaoru, "Bunka to shiteno Rodo Jikan," in Naze Nihoqjin wa Hataraki sugiru noka, ed. Inose Naoki and Shinshu Daigaku Kyakuin Koshi-dan (Tokyo: Heibon-sha, 1988), 144-151. Kato points out that "Japanese workers are eager to bring private matters such as illicit love affairs into companies” and that "the more workplaces become 'dry,' the harder workers try to secretly bring unproductive activities into the hours spent at work." (Ibid., 155)

m Otaku are young people who are fanatically absorbed in specific activities

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In today's mass-consumption society of Japan, which has made it possible to enjoy qualitative affluence, excessive commodification has promoted reification of human relations. This tendency has all the more intensified the need for "other people," the need for communications especially among young people.177

Results of the survey described by Fukuda also prove this178. Workers in general and young ones in particular have come to feel that the value of working lies in the sense

of fulfillment brought about by communication in workplaces, rather than in self

achievement realized through the job itself In order to realize a "balanced" distribution of time between work and leisure activities, the workers' need for mutual-identification

should be fulfilled in both activities. In other words, a balance should be achieved in both qualitative and quantitative senses. A qualitative solution, Le., to reduce work- time and increase leisure-time, would never guarantee the "real affluence" which brings people the sense of having a fulfilled life179. An important question is whether

we can achieve self-identification and mutual-identification in both work and leisure activities without losing the positive effects of "voluntary" working which have been interwoven into the Japanese management system.

such as computer games, animated cartoons, idol singers, and so on.

177Ozeki Shuji, Asobi to Seikatsu no Tetsugaku: Ningen-teki Yutakasa to Jiko Kakusho no tameni (Tokyo: Ootsuki-shoten, 1992), 158.

178Fukuda, "Nihon ni okeru Rodosha Ishiki no Henka to Shugyo Kodo eno Eikyo."

179One psychological analysis of the sense of affluence shows that such material indices as "annual income" and "(overtime) working hours" have little direct correlation with "general sense of affluence." According to this analysis, the factor "joy of work" indirectly increases "general sense of affluence" through the factor "stability of satisfaction," and directly increases "a sense of happiness." [Furkawa Hideo, Yagi Ryuichiro, and Yamashita Kyo, "Yutori (kan) no Shinri-gaku-teki Kozo," Int'lecowk 837 (February 1994)]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONCLUSION

In this paper, which recognizes that long working hours in Japan are generated by the autotelic nature of work, I have examined how "voluntary" working is

occasioned by "flow" experiences under Japanese management systems. The analysis goes beyond the framework of economics in that it does not assume "rational" acts by "individuals" as units.

As a final comment, I would like to add the outlook for the future here. In the last several years, it is said that Japanese-style labor management has been changing with the development of office automation, post industrialization of the economy,

globalization and the aging of society. Since the collapse of the bubble economy, in

particular, Japanese corporations have set about restructuring organizations in the midst of prolonged depression. The practice of long-term employment and the

seniority system, which have played a significant role in achieving workers "flow," ate rapidly collapsing as the early retirement system and the lowering of mandatory

retirement age are promoted. Many companies have started applying the transfer system, temporarily or otherwise180, to more workers and have come to make more

use of outplacing services, Le., services which arrange and support such transfers. Japanese-style communications represented by "gray activities" will decrease as a

180When a worker is transferred to a subsidiary or an affiliated company but still "belongs to" a parent company, it is called "shukko." When a transfer means a worker's losing his membership in a parent company, it is called "tensekL" The former has a rather temporary nature while the latter does not.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. result of the cut in social expenses and entertainment expenses. In the course of rapid hollowing of the Japanese economy, changes will inevitably occur in the long-term competition which involves many "hopeful" "ordinary" workers under the "late

promotion" system. The Japanese labor management style, whereby workers voluntary

will is developed by increasing technical and social skills through incompany training

and education, has an advantage in the long run, even in the labor cost calculation181. Yet companies which are pressed for rapid cost reduction in the harsh global competition cannot help revising the traditional labor management style.

Now let's examine these changes in the "flow" work model. Firstly, the flow * zone will be relatively narrowed. That is, those workers qualified by the management to be led to the zone will be selected earlier than ever and not as many ordinary

workers will be able to experience the joy of working. Most regular workers, regular male workers at least, have qualified so far. Early selection, however, will be

promoted even with regular male workers. Secondly, the area outside the flow zone,

too, will be narrowed. Those workers who in the past could at least remain in the company by means of demotion or downgrading will be ousted by transfer or dismissal. It can be assumed that Japanese workers keenly feel that the flow zone has been

narrowed. It becomes more and more difficult for workers to work hopefully,

believing that they can experience "flow" as irreplaceable members of their company only by demonstrating social skills. However, unless they participate in the

competition for the flow zone, they cannot stay even in the area outside the flow zone. Under such conditions, the number of workers who decide by themselves to leave a

181Koike Kazuo, Nihon no Kigyo System: Sono Fuhen-sei to Tsuyomi (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo-sha, 1994).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. company early will increase on the one hand, while those who reluctantly decide to participate in the "flow" competition will increase, on the other. It seems that the working of long hours will be further "hidden" in the form of "service overtime"

working. Work in Japanese corporations thus far "at least has not been autocratic

control by capital in Marxist terms."182 However, in the course of changes occurring in Japanese-style management, workers wont be able to feel the sense of fulfillment

and the value of working other than in a more warped form. True "coercion" will begin from now on.

182Yoshida Kazuo. Nihon-gata Keiei System no Kozai (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinpo-sha, 1993), 209.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHART 1-1: Trends in Annual Working Hours in Japan

2500 1*20

2-100 | 24 oi (0 2300 13of

2200 zi'TO

2100

20 6+ 2000 W 1972 .

1900 1937 .Cl) 1800 i 60 65 75 80 85 90 92

(1) Total Hours Worked "Labor Force Survey" (Management and Coordination Agency) (2) Total Hours Worked "Monthly Labor Survey" (the Ministry of Labor) (3) Regular Working Hours

Source: (1) "Labour Force Survey," prepared by the Statistics Bureau, Management and . Coordination Agency. (2) and (3) "Monthly Labour Survey," prepared by the Ministry of Labour. Note: Establishments with 30 or more regular workers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE 1-2: International Comparison o f Working Hours Etc.

i Japan U. S. LI. K. Germany France ! |Annual Working Hours 2080 1943 1902 1582 1682 j Regular Working Hours 1876 1756 1739 1499 * :

! Overtime 204 187 163 83 ■ lAnnual Holidays 120 139 147 157 154 Weekly Holidays 87 104 104 104 104 i Holidays except Weekly Holidays 21 9 8 12 8 . Annual Paid Holidays 9 19 24 29 26 ! Absent Days 3 7 11 12 i 6 : Oaily Working Hours 8. 49 8. 60 8. 72 7.61 7.97 ; Regular Working Hours 7.66 7. 77 7. 98 7. 21 Overtime 0. 83 0. 83 0. 75 0. 40 1

Source: "1993 White Paper on labor," prepared by the Ministry of Labor. Note: (1) Japan: Establishments with 30 or more regular workers. U.S.: All Establishments. Other countries: Establishments with 10 or more regular workers. (2) Including Regular Part-time workers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE 1-3: Weekly Total Hours Worked in Japan (Manufacturing, Pruduction Workers)

Year Japan U. S. U. K. Germany France 1975 39.3 37.0 32.3 35.2 1978 41. 1 37.0 37.6 33. 1 34. 1 1979 41.6 36.9 1980 41.6 36.4 1981 41. 3 36.3 36.7 31.8 33.0 1982 41. 1 35.6 1983 41.4 36. 7 1984 41.9 37.3 37.4 32. 1 31. 7 1985 41. 7 37. 1 37.5 31.9 31.6 1986 41. 3 37. 1 37.3 31.8 31.6 1987 41. 7 37.3 37.4 31.6 31.6 1988 42. 1 37. 7 37. 7 31.6 31. 7 1989 41. 5 37.6 38.3 31. 5 31. 7 1990 40.8 37.5 37.6 30. 7 32.4 1991 40.0 37.4 36.6 30.4 32. 3

Source: Nihon Seisansei Honbu. Katsuvo RodoTokei (1994V Original Source: Japan: "Monthly Labor Survey" by the Ministry of Labor. U.S.: "Handbook of Labor Statistics" by the Ministry of Labor. U.K., Germany and France: "Labour Costs" by the Bureau of Statistics, EC. Note: (1) Japan: Establishments with 5 or more regular workers. U.S.: All Establishments. Other Countries: Establishments with 10 or more regular workers. (2) Including regular part-time workers. (3) Germany refers to the ex-West Germany.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 1-4: Annual Workdays and Holidays (Manufacturing and Production Workers, 1991)

Country Japan U. S. U. K. Germany France Total 365 365 365 365 365 Workdays 250 233 229 221 227 Absent Days 3 6 11 11 16 Annual Paid Holidays 9 19 24 29 26 Holidays 106 113 112 115 112 Weekly Holidays 85 104 104 104 104

Source: Nihon Seisansei Honbu. Katsuvo Rodo Tokei ( 1994V Note: (1) "Number of annual paid holidays" refers to the number of days actually taken in the case of Japan, while for other countries it means the number of given days. (2) A five-day workweek is assumed for the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 1-5: International Comparison of Time Spent in Commuting (Proportion of Workers [%])

1 Country Year t~15min. 16-60min. over 60min. |[A11 workers] ...... I Australia 1974 36 56 8 | Austria 1978 50 46 4 I Belgium 1970 38 53 8 I Canada 1980 54 44 2 I W. Germany 1980 [60] (b) [37] (b) 3 I Italy 1975 [78] (b) [19] (b)...... 3 Holland 1975 21 71 9 i New Zealand 1980-81 67 30 0 ! Norway 1980 58 41 1 Switzerland 1980 48 50 2 ; u.s. 1979(a) 36 58 6 ([Employees] j | Australia 1979 41 53 ...... 6 Austria 1978 49 47 4 Finland 1977 55 [39] (b) [6] (b) ! France 1978 31(b) 64(b) 4 1 taly 1975 [76](b) 21(b) 3 Norway 1973 38 56 6

Source: Fujimoto Takeshi. Sekai kara Mita Nihon no Chingin. Rodo Jikan ('Shinnihon Shinsho, 1991). OECD. Living Conditions in OECD Countries (1986). 85. Note: (1) Excluding agriculture. (2) Finland: 16-45 min. and over 45 min. France: 1-10 min. and 10-60 min. W. Germany: 20 min. or below and 21-60 min. Italy: 30 min. or below and 31-60 min.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 1-6: Changes and Differences in Time Spent in Commuting According to the Population Size of Cities (Weekdays Average)

Area/City (Population Size) 1990 1985 1980 [Megalopolis] Tokyo Area lh. 32m. lh. 29m. lh. 31m. Osaka Area lh. 20m. lh. 17m. lh. 16m. [City] 500 thousand or more lh. 03m. lh. 02m. lh. 09m. 100-500 thousand 59m. 58m. lh. 00m. below 100 thousand 55m. 56m. 58m. [Town/Village] 56m. 54m. lh. 01m.

Source: NHK, Kokumin Seikatu Jikan Chosa H990Y

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 2-1: Issues/Problems Between Unions and Managements and How Well Unions Deal with Them

Issues/Problems Degree of (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) Importance Reduction of Regular Working Hours (a) 0.67 28.8 52.7 9.5 0.4 8.7 Regulation on Overtime 0.58 19.3 ; 62. 1 10.2 0. 4 8.0 Transfer to Other Companies 0. 54 32.2 ; 32.2 20. 1 7.6 8.0 Qualification-emphasized Personnel Management 0.44 22.3 : 38.3 17.4 9.5 12.5 Retirement Money and Pension 0.41 43.6 : 41.3 8.7 0.0 6.4 Suppression of Wage Increase 0.40 18.2 41.7 22.3 7.2 10.6 Extension of the Retirement Age 0.39 60.6 : 18.9 7.2 0.4 12.9 Spending of Paid Holidays 0.33 17.0 60.6 14.8 0.0 7. 6 Tanshin Funin (b) 0.30 26.i : 44.7 15.5 2.3 11.4 Transfer across Regions 0.29 22.0 I 43.2 15.2 9. 1 10.6 Reinforcement of Individual Assessment 0.21 15.9 36.4 22.0 12. I 13.6 Welfare Programs (Housing) 0.20 40.9 42.4 9.8 0.0 6.8 Introduction of Expert System 0. 17 16.3 27.7 31. I 13.6 11*4 Welfare Programs (F acilities. Policies etc.) 0. 15 35.6 48. I 8.0 0.0 8.3 Conversion of Tvpes of Job and Workplaces 0. 13 24.2 34. 5 17.4 8.7 15.2

(A) The Proportico of unions which have tackled the issue and have obtained good results (B) The Proportion of unions which have tackled the issue and have difficulties in obtaining good results (C) The Proportion of unions which have difficulties in tackling the issue (D) The Proportion of unions which think that they ought not deal with the issue (E) Unknown

Source: Nihon Seisansei Honbu, Rodo Kumiai no Geqjo to Shorai Tenbo (April, 1987). Note: (a) Including the diffusion of five-day workweek. (b) That is, the cases whereby workers take up posts in other cities, leaving their families behind.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chart 3-1: International Comparison o f "Work Centrality" (1) (Allocation o f 100 Points among Five Areas of Life)

141 44

■H18X

Japan Belgium Holland Israel West Germany U. S. U. K. Hi York Leisure □ Regional Society □ Religion Family

Source: Misumi Jiyuji. Hatarakukoto no Imi: MOW no Kokusai Hikaku Kenkyu (1987'). 16.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chart 3-2: International Comparison o f "Work Centrality" (2) (Grading According to Seven Ranks)

Japan Israel U.S. Holland Belgium W. Germany U.K.

(1) 7th and 6th grades ("Work is one of the most important things.") (2) 5th, 4th and 3rd grades (3) 2nd and 1st grades ("Work is one of the least important things.")

Source: Misumi Jiyuji. Hatarakukoto no Imi: MOW no Kokusai Hikaku Kenkyu (1987). 18

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chart 3-3: Changes in Work Centrality Points o f Males According to Age (Points Allocated to Work among Five Areas o f Life)

50.0-

io.o}-

0 . 0 j------1------! Students -19 20- 30- 40- 50- 60- -•- Belgium U.K. *.Germany Israel Japan ~e~ Holland

[Age] Students -19 20- 30- 40- 50- 60- BeLgium 20.8 24.3(a) 27.5 33.8 33. 1 28. 3 36.7 U. K. 21.3 22.5 22.2 W. Germany 16. 9 25.5 27.5 28.3 32.2 31.2 29.8 Israel 25. 2 17.5(a) 31.0 30.0 29.8 30.4 31.2 Japan 24.9 21.5 35.8 37.8 40.6 41.4 36.9 Holland ! 25.0 25.8 29.3 29.7 27.8 30.9 33.9 U. S. ! 27.2 20.6 23.4 23.5 27. 5 29.8 25.9

Source: Misumi Jiyuji. Hatarakukoto no Imi: MOW no Kokusai Hikaku Kenkyu (19871. 22. Note: (a) Average of small samples less than 10.

100

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