The manufacturing industry̶the source of much of Japanʼs growth̶is at a crossroads, i.e., in tight competition with South Korean and Chinese corporations. Recent studies have revealed that, while Japanese engineering technology is advanced, motivation toward work and organizational contribution has been decreasing since the 1990s and is clearly low compared to what is found in other job sectors and in other countries, even in terms of treatment (Nakata, 2009). Thus, today, the highly competitive capability of South Korean corporations and the vigorous innovative activities of Chinese corporations are a threat to Japan. This paper sheds light on the situation according to corporate survey results, focusing on what type of management Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese corporations employ to govern product development engineers, who are an important source of competitiveness in corporations. Different types of personnel systems have become more widespread owing to the dependence on the history of each country. Using the Marsden employment system theory, this paper analyzes what type of human resource (HR) management is being implemented and what types of complements to product architecture are taking place for the same products in the three countries. Since each product we examined had to be something developed in all the three countries, we selected mobile phone devices, LCD TVs, and information systems.
This paper explores how “benevolent” militaries undertaking postnational defense utilize women and femininity, through the example of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF). Militaries are androcentric and masculinist organizations all over the world, but this does not mean that women and femininity are not involved in militaries (Enloe 1993). Since the second half of the 20th century, more and more women have enlisted in militaries and their roles have been gradually expanded. However, women have never been treated as simply “one of the boys.” In this gendered organization, even women who perform their duties the same way as men have been expected to emphasize and mobilize their femininity in various ways. Today, most militaries are not simply tasked with homeland security; rather, they are expected to cooperate with foreign nations and concern themselves with the security situation beyond national borders. Annica Kronsell (2012), who names this phenomenon “postnational defense,” explains that militaries are increasingly participating in peace operations, which entail transgressing national borders to save distant others in the name of “human rights.” This seemingly benevolent agenda is in fact characterized by a neoliberal ideology that attempts to democratize and liberalize countries and economies worldwide. Accompanied with the neoliberal ideas of progress, order, competition, and economic rationality, postnational defense normalizes inter-state intervention and links humanitarian operations with military ones. This new paradigm militarizes humanitarianism, rather than humanizing the military. States performing this militarized humanitarianism need others to whom they can bring justice and freedom in order to prove their righteousness. Through partaking in postnational defense, developed countries construct gendered others as either violent and hyper-masculine or helpless and feminine, while they simultaneously reproduce their own superiority. This construction of national and cultural identity in opposition to inferior others in need of help mirrors imperialist ideologies. Looking at these agendas with a feminist curiosity, we come to realize that postnational defense, as a form of imperialism, is intrinsically gendered. As Gayatri C. Spivak has taught us, according to an imperialist logic, a “good society” is one which protects women “from her own kind” (Spivak 1988: 299). Of course, in this paradigm, these “saved” women are not granted Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies 51 (2020), pp.1-23. C Hitotsubashi University
