Corporate Growth and the Development of Human Resource Practices:

A Case Study of KYOCERA Corporation’s 60 Years

Abstract

This study attempts to understand the long-term evolution of human resource practices at the KYOCERA Corporation from the perspective of labor-management relations. The company’s human resource practices have historical periods, which are influenced by the personnel system that was fashionable for that era. As the company expanded, human resource practices were developed. By understanding the long-term transition, we were able to understand the relationship between organizational expansion and human resource practices. KYOCERA went through a period of organizational design beyond the individual response of management during its founding period, followed by the development of human resource practices for a large organization with more than 1,000 employees. The human resource practice completed in the early 1990s was ability-based personnel management. Kyocera subsequently faced an aging structure due to slowing corporate growth; however, did not change the system of management; instead, created a system that enabled the selection of human resources through system revisions and operational changes. This long-term history of personnel system reform is thought to generate discussion of human resource practices that are not influenced by fads.