The Multi-Dimensions of Industrial Relations in the Asian Knowledge-Based Economies

Chapter 3

Globalization of Japanese Firms and Human Resource Management

Hiromasa Suzuki and Katsuyuki Kubo

1 INTRODUCTION

In the past 25 years, in terms of globalization, Japanese firms have experienced a dramatic change due to increasing international competition and also to domestic economic slumps. At the beginning of the 1980s, a few large Japanese firms had overseas production plants, but none of them could be compared to leading western multinationals such as IBM, GM or Nestlé. But, today many large and medium Japanese firms have established production plants in China, Southeast Asian countries, the EU or in the USA. In some sectors like the automobile industry, a large proportion of group profits are drawn from overseas sales, in particular ...