Culture in Japanese labor relation : a comparison with Western industrial nations

Abstract

Japan's economic development daring twentieth century despite overpopulation and poor resources, has attracted the interest of world scholars. The issue of this thesis is that management styles in any nation are deeply rooted in the historical and religious origins of the nation's culture, customs, and traditional social values, as well as in its economic and social system. We have attempted to bring together under one cover a distillation and synthesis of a large number of scholarly works covering the effect of Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism and Buddhism upon Japanese management culture. A successful management-labor relationship must be tailored to the customs and culture of a country. Cultural attributes, management ideology, characteristics of management style, and management-labor relation are compared between Japan and Western countries.