Restructuring of Japanese Enterprises — Programs for a Special Institutional Environment

  • Carsten Herbes
Chapter

Abstract

The bursting of the speculative ‘bubble economy’ — and the longest recession in Japan’s post-war history that followed it — plunged the Japanese economy into crisis and called many of the idiosyncrasies into question which, until that time, had been seen as factors in the successes of Japanese businesses (Schmidt, 1997, p. 95). In order to deal with this crisis, Japanese companies carried out restructuring programs of a size and scope not hitherto seen in Japan’s post-war history. In the economic slump following the global financial crisis of 2008–09, Japanese companies will again be forced to implement restructuring programs in order to survive. Recent announcements like that of Panasonic to close down 27 manufacturing sites and to cut 15,000 jobs (Reuters, 2009), are probably just the herald of another restructuring wave.

Keywords

Japanese Company Early Retirement Corporate Group Regular Employee Japanese Economy 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Carsten Herbes 2010

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