Making Corporate Archives Sustainable

Archivists in Japanese-style Management

Abstract

This study considers the priorities for the sustainable development of corporate archives in Japan. First,corporate archives must create value, because this will highlight their importance for the companyʼs management. Second, Japanese-style management, characterized by internal transfer and promotion and the simultaneous recruiting of new graduates, creates structural difficulties for a company to hire people with a masterʼs degree in archival science as regular permanent employees. Basedoninterviewswithagroupof corporate officials who have work experience in corporate archives or museums, this study finds the following:

（1）archive management should be positioned close to the decision-making bodies in the organization;（2）its contemporary significance in terms of CSR needs to be communicated to managers and management; and（3）effective training for in-house transferees, including the compilation and use of reliable professional textbooks,is indispensable.