摘要：This study reexamines the link between lifetime employment and the demand–supply law while illustrating it with recent data. We first show how this norm among Japanese companies played an important role in the historical development of the employment system. Recent data and studies show that LTE is still practiced in Japanese companies, although the practice is more restricted in number of employees and in career options open to them. To examine the demand–supply law from the employees' perspective, we conduct probit and ordered probit model analyses using data from our survey about Japanese management practices. Results show that employees with children rate LTE practices significantly more highly than those without do. For some cases, the same is true for older people. Results show that workers from some areas with higher unemployment figures have a negative image on LTE than people from Tokyo, for example. People who face difficulty tend to think that it is unlikely for a company to sustain a commitment to LTE. Job status is important factor determining the evaluation for LTE, too; independents (non-regulars: artists, entrepreneurs, etc.) appraise LTE and job security considerably more highly than regular workers do; managers and especially top managers are apparently much less favorable to ideas about job security. Finally, we investigated a relation between collectivism or individualism and LTE. Our data here are sometimes contradictory and are too confusing to support the inference of any significant result. We found no generally applicable conclusion for this equation, but we consider the topic itself as an important one because it might strongly affect preferences related to LTE.
关键词：Lifetime employment; Management practice; Employee's ;behavior ;1;This research was financially supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research.; var currentpos;timer; function initialize() { timer=setInterval("scrollwindow()";10);} function sc(){clearInterval(timer); }function scrollwindow() { currentpos=document.body.scrollTop; window.scroll(0;++currentpos); if (currentpos != document.body.scrollTop) sc();} document.onmousedown=scdocument.ondblclick=initialize;What is the Lifetime of the 'Lifetime Employment'. Empirical Research from Japan;592 ;Introduction ;Abegglen wrote in 2006 about lifetime employment: "Its ;end has been announced each year since I first used the ;term in 1958; when I analyzed the 'lifetime commitment' ;which become distorted in popular parlance as 'lifetime ;employment'. Then; and no less now; this is the measure of ;the degree to which the kaisha as social organization is ;meeting its obligations to its members." (p.10). ;When we examine the business literature on Japanese ;management practices; opinions are remarkably divided. In ;leading American business magazines and newspapers; ;many articles have been written about the changing ;attitudes of firm management; with evidence that old ;practices have died out already.;1;The majority of the relevant ;literature states however; that since the bubble burst; ;circumstances have not changed drastically; old practices ;are still found at major companies. ;No doubt remains about the difficulty that mapping and ;evaluating business practices in a country entails. One way ;analysts overcome this challenge is to select famous large ;organizations and describe them as examples of the ;academic findings. We did not choose that approach. ;In this paper; we present analyses of top management ;and corporate pattern trends from a business history ;perspective: we trace them to their origins; follow their ;evolution through data and seek feedback on their present ;state in the results of our questionnaire survey. ;Jacoby (2007) identified national business practices as ;Gauss curves. Adopting his approach in our country study; ;we have been seeking the mean. ;When the topic of 'Japanese management' pops up; we ;might mostly imagine lifetime employment; seniority; and ;company-based unions. These are the main characteristics ;first described by Western scholars.;2;In addition; many have ;emphasized the community nature of firms; collective ;decision-making processes; recruiting based on new ;graduates; or in-company (on-the-job) training. In fact; the ;term Japanese management is rarely defined because of the ;1;New York Times; The Economist; Wall Street Journal ;2;Earliest; popular readings are from Abegglen and Dore
