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Document Details :

Title: The Relation Between Family and Enterprise in Early Modern Japan
Author(s): GAENS, B.
Journal: Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica
Volume: 29    Date: 1998   
Pages: 189-204
DOI: 10.2143/OLP.29.0.583570

Abstract :
Until today family and firm are two closely intertwined concepts in the Japanese business world. Firstly, “management familism,” the idea of the company as a family, is often mentioned as a characteristic of Japanese management in postwar business studies. According to this idiom, the company is a family-like environment, encompassing the worker's life. Employees remain loyal to the company all their lives and work hard to achieve the group goals. Management practices like lifetime employment, seniority-based wages, quality-circles and in-company union sustain the feeling of the company as a community of people with a common destiny (ie kyôdôtai). This paternalistic ideology in companies, an attempt to create an emotional identification with the firm, is called “familism” or kazokushugi. Western scholarship however, has criticized this company-as-family metaphor. Researchers have pointed out how, from the 1930's on, company management has used the ideology of familism in order to dismiss government intervention or to avoid having to improve working conditions. Nevertheless, the “familistic” ideal of a benevolent management caring for loyal workers is still very much alive. It is often invoked not only by the direction but also by the employees claiming their rights and full membership of the company-community.

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