2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Research on New Trends about Occupational Careers and Occupational Abilities
| Project/Area Number |
12410065
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
社会学(含社会福祉関係)
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| Research Institution | Ritsurneikan University |
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Principal Investigator |
TSUJI Katsuji College of Social Sciences, Professor, 産業社会学部, 教授 (60066719)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HIGUCHI Hiromi Senshu Univ., College of Letters, asstant Professor, 文学部, 助教授 (70313624)
YUMOTO Makoto Sapporo Gakuin Univ., Faculty of Humanities, Professor, 人文学部, 教授 (00240169)
MURAKAMI Bunji Kusiro Public Univ. of Economics, College of Economics, Professor, 経済学部, 教授 (40210017)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2002
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| Keywords | occupational career / occupational ability / blue-collar-workers / white-collar-workers / Toyota / 外部労働力 / 非正規雇用 |
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| Research Abstract |
The study began in April 2000 and 18 meetings/research sessions were held through March 2004. We interviewed 96 employees, consisting of clerical and technical staff and factory workers of Toyota, Komatsu Machinery, Wacoal and Shimadzu Corporations. The study report totaled 360 pages. The details are described in the last chapter of "Study of new job ability and career" and the major findings are as follows:
[1] As a whole, both white-and blue-collar employees steadily built a career and improved their working ability under the long-term employment system. Regarding Toyota, Shiniadzu, Wacoal and Komatsu, also in the 1990s, no changes were found in the personnel management policy to reform Japanese employment practices drastically. The fundamental principle has been transferring from company-driven management on the basis of entry year and seniority in the '80s to self-responsible performance-based system, which is a very deliberate and slow process.
[2] The major differences from the '80
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s are as follows: among both white-and blue-collar employees, [A] employees are managed by the merit-based system; [B] multi-track career system is proceeding; [C] company-driven career planning is shifting to personal-driven career and [D] most employees think these changes desirable and have no serious complaints or backlash.
[3] External manpower including temporary and contract workers has been introduced into both white-and blue-collar areas of employment, while full-timers are strained in working time and concern for co-workers. However, they do not consider that the expansion of external manpower will have a direct effect on their career, i.e., restructuring and replacement.
[4] White-collar clerical and technical employees have an interest in promotion and expect open and fair personnel management. At the same time, employees frequently appeal their complaints and promote themselves. It is an issue for future investigation whether their proactive attitude toward career building is a new tendency or was present before.
[5] Blue-collar employees have an interest in job training. Immediate problems are succession of the know-how from skilled workers and fostering and management of foremen.
In the subject companies, the personnel management has been shifting from a company-driven system on the basis of entry year and seniority in '80s to a personnel-driven performance-based system, however this tendency is slow and employees are still union-oriented, not American market-oriented, which suggests that it takes much time to shift from the former to the latter. The fluid labor market is a recent topic however, this fluid tendency is found only in the external labor market consisting of temporary and contract workers and part-time workers and the internal market is surprisingly stable. The future problem is to determine what effect the external manpower that has been promoting into companies will have on the position of full-time workers with job separation and reorganization. Less
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