IR 928: SEMINAR IN COMPARATIVE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS:
THE JAPANESE EMPLOYMENT SYSTEM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Spring 1994 W 3:00-5:30 6101 Social Sciences?
Jonathan Zeitlin 6321 Social Science/2-1131
5213 Humanities/5-2523
This course will examine the origins, dynamics, and future prospects
of the Japanese employment system. Among the issues considered will
be: similarities and differences in comparison to the employment
systems of other advanced capitalist countries; management and the
firm; work organization and production; skill formation; enterprise
unionism; collective bargaining; changing relations between business,
labor, and the state; small firms and subcontracting; and Japanese
transplants abroad.
Participation is open to graduate students with a basic working
knowledge of comparative industrial relations. Enrollment will be
limited to 20 students, to preserve the seminar character of the
course.
During the semester, students will be asked to make oral presentations
in class, summarizing assigned readings and preparing themes for
discussion. One of these presentations will then form the basis of a
short written paper (8-10 pages), due by the end of the eighth week of
classes. In addition, students will be asked to write a longer paper
(c. 20 pages), on a topic to be agreed with the instructor. This
paper will be due on the last day of class. The seminar
presentations/short paper and the longer paper will each contribute 50
percent to a student's overall grade. Active classroom participation
may modify a student's overall grade upwards.
Most books listed in this syllabus are on reserve in the Helen C.
White College Library. Some of them may also be on reserve in the
Somers Reference Library on the eighth floor of the Social Science
Building. This library also holds copies of the unpublished
manuscripts listed in the syllabus, as well as of those book chapters
and journal articles that it does not otherwise hold. Books indicated
with an asterisk (*) have been ordered for student purchase at the
University Bookstore.
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Week One: Introductory Meeting
Part I: The Japanese Employment System: Comparative Overviews
Week Two: Understanding Japanese Industrial Relations
Koike, Kazuo, 1988: Understanding Industrial Relations in Modern Japan
(New York: St. Martin's Press).
Week Three: Late Development
*Dore, Ronald, 1990: British Factory-Japanese Factory (Berkeley:
California University Press, 2nd edition).
Additional Reading
Cole, Robert E., 1978: "The Late Developer Hypothesis: An Evaluation
of Its Relevance for Japanese Employment Practices", Journal of
Japanese Studies 4: 247-65.
Dore, Ronald, 1979a: "More on Late Development", Journal of Japanese
Studies 5: 137-51.
Dore, Ronald, 1979b: "Industrial Relations in Japan and Elsewhere",
in: Albert M. Craig, ed., Japan: A Comparative View (Princeton:
Princeton University Press): 325-61.
Dore, Ronald, 1987: Taking Japan Seriously (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press): esp. chs. 1, 5, 9, pp. 3-19; 85-107; 169-92.
Part Two: Origins and Historical Development
Week Four: Management and Workers
*Gordon, Andrew, 1985: The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan:
Heavy Industry, 1853-1955 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press).
Gordon, Andrew, 1993: "Contests for the Workplace", in Andrew Gordon,
ed., Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley: University of California
Press): 373-94.
Week Five: Rise of the Labor Movement
*Gordon, Andrew, 1990: Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan
(Berkeley: University of California Press).
Additional Reading
Large, Stephen, 1981: Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in
Interwar Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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Large, Stephen, 1972: The Rise of Labor in Japan: The Yuaikai 1912-19
(Tokyo: Sophia University Press).
Week Six: The Role of the State
*Garon, Sheldon, 1988: The State and Labor in Modern Japan, (Palo
Alto: Stanford University Press).
Gordon, Andrew, 1989: "Business and the Corporate State: The Business
Lobby and Bureaucrats on Labor, 1911-41", in W.D. Wray (ed.),
Managing Industrial Enterprise: Case Studies from Japan's Prewar
Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press): 53-85.
Garon, Sheldon and Mike Mochizuki, 1993: "Negotiating Social Contracts
in Postwar Japan", in Gordon, Postwar Japan as History: 145-66.
Part Three: Postwar Dynamics and Future Prospects
Week Seven: Management and the Firm
Aoki, Masahiko, 1987: "The Japanese Firm in Transition", in: Kozo
Yamamura and Yasukichi Yasuba (eds.), The Political Economy of
Japan, volume 1: The Domestic Transformation (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press): 263-88.
Aoki, Masahiko, 1990: "Toward an Economic Model of the Japanese Firm",
Journal of Economic Literature 28: 1-27.
*Clark, Rodney, 1979: The Japanese Company (New Haven: Yale University
Press).
Additional Reading
Abbeglen, James C. and George Stalk, 1985: Kaisha: The Japanese
Company (New York: Free Press.
Fruin, W. Mark, 1992: The Japanese Enterprise System (Oxford:
Clarendon Press).
Week Eight: Work Organization and Production
*Cusumano, Michael A., 1985: The Japanese Automobile Industry:
Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press): chs. 4-6, pp. 186-373.
Womack, James et al., 1992: The Machine that Changed the World (New
York: HarperCollins): chs. 3-4, pp. 48-104.
Dohse, Knuth et al., 1986: "From 'Fordism' to 'Toyotism'? The Social
Organization of the Labor Process in the Japanese Automobile
Industry", Politics & Society 14: 115-46.
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Kenny, Martin and Richard Florida, 1988: "Beyond Mass Production:
Production and the Labor Process in Japan", Politics & Society 16:
121-58.
Sayer, Andrew, 1986: "New Developments in Manufacturing: The Just-In-
Time System", Capital & Class 30: 43-72.
Aoki, Keisuke, "Flexible Work Organization and Management Control in
Japanese-Style Management", International Journal of Political
Economy (Fall): 49-69.
Week Nine: Skill Formation
Koike, Kazuo, 1987: "Human Resource Development and Labor-Management
Relations", in: Yamamura and Yasukichi, Political Economy of Japan,
Volume 1: 289-330.
Dore, Ronald and Mari Sako, 1989: How the Japanese Learn to Work
(London: Routledge): esp. chs. 1-3, 6-7, pp. 1-55, 76-135.
Whittaker, D.H., 1990: Managing Innovation: A Study of British and
Japanese Factories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): esp.
chs. 1, 5-8, pp. 1-19, 99-163.
Cole, Robert E., 1992: "Some Social and Cultural Sources of
Innovation: Small Group Activities in Comparative Perspective", in
Shumpei Kumon and Henry Rosovsky (eds.), The Political Economy of
Japan, Volume 3: Cultural and Social Dynamics (Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press): 292-320.
Week Ten: Enterprise Unionism
Shirai, Taishiro, 1983: "A Theory of Enterprise Unionism", in:
Taishiro Shirai (ed.), 1983: Contemporary Industrial Relations in
Japan (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press): 117-43.
Seifert, Wolfgang, 1988: "Some Thoughts on the Problem of Internal
Union Democracy in Japan", Economic and Industrial Democracy 9:
373-95.
Deutschmann, Christoph, 1987: "Economic Restructuring and Company
Unionism -- The Japanese Model", Economic and Industrial Democracy
8: 463-88.
Marsh, Robert M., 1992: "The Difference Between Participation and
Power in Japanese Factories", Industrial and Labor Relations
Review: 250-7.
Kawanishi, Hirosuke, 1986: "The Reality of Enterprise Unionism", in:
Gavan McCormack and Yoshio Sugimoto (eds.), Democracy in
Contemporary Japan (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger): 138-156.
Inagami, Takeshi, 1983: Labor-Management Communication at the Workshop
Level (Tokyo: The Japan Institute of Labour).
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Additional Reading
*Cusumano, Michael, 1985: The Japanese Automobile Industry: ch. 3, pp.
137-85.
Okayama, Reiko, 1986: "Industrial Relations in the Japanese Automobile
Industry, 1945-70: The Case of Toyota", in: Steven Tolliday and
Jonathan Zeitlin, eds., The Automobile Industry and Its Workers:
Between Fordism and Flexibility (New York: St. Martins): 168-90.
Week Eleven: Collective Bargaining
Kazutoshi, Koshiro, 1983a: "Development of Collective Bargaining in
Postwar Japan", in: Shirai, Contemporary Industrial Relations in
Japan: 205-58.
Levine, Solomon B., 1984: "Employers' Associations in Japan", in: John
Windmuller and Alan Gladstone (eds.), Employers' Associations and
Industrial Relations: 318-56.
Taira, Koji and Solomon B. Levine, 1985: "Japan's Industrial Rela-
tions: A Social Compact Emerges", in: Hervey Juris et al. (eds.),
Industrial Relations in a Decade of Economic Change (Madison, WI:
IRRA): 247-300.
Kazutoshi, Koshiro, 1983b: "Labor Relations in Public Enterprises",
in: Shirai, Contemporary Industrial Relations in Japan: 259-93.
*Kume, Ikuo, 1993: "A Tale of Twin Industries: Labor Accomodation in
the Private Sector", in: Gary D. Allinson and Yasunori Sone (eds.),
Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press): 158-80.
Japan Institute of Labour, 1989: Shunto Wage Offensive: Historical
Overview and Prospects (Tokyo: Japan Institute of Labour).
Week Twelve: Business, Labor, and the State: Towards Corporatism?
Pempel, T.J. and Keichi Tsunekawa, 1979: "Corporatism without Labor?:
The Japanese Anomaly", in: Philippe Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch
(eds.), Trends Towards corporatist Intermediation (Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage): 231-70.
Kume, Ikuo 1988: "Changing Relations Among the Government, Labor, and
Business in Japan After the Oil Crisis", International
Organization, 42: 659-87.
Shimada, Haruo, 1983: "Wage Determination and Information Sharing: An
Alternative Approach to Incomes Policy?", Journal of Industrial
Relations 25: 177-200.
Dore, Ronald, 1987: "Building an Incomes Policy to Last", in: Taking
Japan Seriously: 68-84.
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Shalev, Michael, 1990: "Class Conflict, Corporatism and Comparison: A
Japanese Enigma", in: Shmuel Eisenstadt and Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.),
Japanese Models of Conflict Resolution (London: Kogan Paul): 60-93.
Inagami, Takeshi, 1992: "On Japanese-Style Neo-Corporatism: Era of a
Tripartite 'Honeymoon'?", International Journal of Japanese
Sociology 1: 61-77.
Week Thirteen: Small Firms and Subcontracting
*Friedman, David, 1988: The Misunderstood Miracle: Industrial
Development and Political Change in Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press): esp. chs. 1, 4-6, pp. 1-36, 126-228.
Sabel, Charles F., 1993: "Learning by Monitoring: The Institutions of
Economic Development", forthcoming in: Neil Smelser and Richard
Swedberg (eds.), Handbook of Economic Sociology (Princeton:
Princeton University Press).
Nishiguchi, Toshihiro, 1987: "Competing Systems of Automotive Supply:
An Examination of the Japanese 'Clustered Control' Model and the
'Alps' Model" (unpublished paper, MIT International Motor Vehicle
Program).
Asanuma, Banri, 1989: "Manufacturer-Supplier Relationships in Japan
and the Concept of Relation-Specific Skill", Journal of the
Japanese and International Economies 3: 1-30.
Kiyonari, Tadao, 1979: "Small Businesses", in: Johannes Hirschmeier
and Hyoe Murakomi (eds.), Politics and Economics in Contemporary
Japan (Tokyo: Japan Culture Institute): 157-83.
Additional Reading
Nishiguchi, Toshihiro, 1993: Strategic Industrial Sourcing: The
Japanese Advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Week Fourteen: Transplants
Florida, Richard and Martin Kenney, 1991: "Transplanted Organizations:
The Transfer of Japanese Industrial Organization to the US",
American Sociological Review 56: 381-98.
Levine, Solomon B. and Makoto Ohtsu, 1991: "Transplanting Japanese
Labor Relations", The Annals, AAPSS 513: 102-16.
Shimada, Haruo and John Paul MacDuffie, 1987: "Industrial Relations
and 'Humanware': Japanese Investments in Automobile Manufacturing
in the United States" (unpublished paper, International Motor
Vehicles Program, MIT).
Berggren, Christian, 1993: "Lean Production -- The End of History?",
Work Employment & Society 7: 163-88.
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Wood, Stephen, 1991: "Japanization and/or Toyotism?", Work, Employment
& Society 5: 567-600.
Williams, Karel et al., 1992: "Factories or Warehouses: Japanese
Manufacturing Foreign Direct Investment in Britain and the United
States", Occasional Papers on Business, Economy and Society no. 6
(Polytechnic of East London).
Additional Reading
Milkman, Ruth, 1991: Japan's California Factories: Labor Relations and
Economic Globalization (Institute of Industrial Relations, UCLA):
check for article?
Florida, Richard and Martin Kenney, 1993: Beyond Mass Production: The
Japanese System and its Transfer to the US (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
Week Fifteen: The Future of the Japanese Employment System
Freeman, Richard and Marcus E. Rebick, 1989: "Crumbling Pillar?
Declining Union Density in Japan", Journal of the Japanese and
International Economies 3: 578-605.
Kuwahara, Y., 1990: "Changing Industrial Relations in the Context of
Industrial Restructuring: The Case of Japan", Bulletin of
Comparative Labor Relations 20: 147-65.
Whittaker, D.H., 1989: "The End of Japanese-Style Employment?", Work,
Employment & Society 4: 321-47.
Shimada, Haruo, 1992: "Japan's Industrial Culture and Labor-Management
Relations", in: Kumon and Rosovsky, Political Economy of Japan,
Volume 3: 267-91.
*Tsujinaka, Yukata, 1993: "Rengo and its Osmotic Networks", in:
Allison, Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan: 200-215.
*Mochizuki, Mike, 1993: "Public Sector Labor and the Privatization
Challenge: The Railway and Telecommunications Unions", in: Allison,
Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan: 181-99.
Jonathan Zeitlin
Department of History
University of Wisconsin-Madison
5213 Humanities Building
455 N. Park St.
Madison WI 53706
phone: (608) 265-2523/262-1131 (offs.); 263-1800 (dept); 255-4564 (h)
fax: (608) 255-4564