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Hrm Strategies In Structurally Depressed Industries: The Japanese Approach, Mahesh N. Rajan, O. K. Gupta

Faculty Publications

Several adverse macro-economic trends beginning in the early 1970’s drastically reduced the relative competitiveness of various sectors of the Japanese economy. Firms in Western (industrialized) countries that were faced with a similar loss of comparative advantage dealt with the problem by undertaking strategies of restructuring--primarily, retrenchment and downsizing strategies. However, in sharp contrast to the Western approach, the Japanese response to industrial decline, from a HRM standpoint, was a product of the political, cultural, and social institutions/values of that society. The Japanese government, business sector and the labor unions worked together to ‘maintain’ employment levels (albeit, mainly that of permanent …