Abstract
This study describes the subjective careers of highly skilled foreign workers employed by traditional Japanese companies, to shed light on the factors that create conflicts between foreign workers and companies. Currently, many foreigners work in large Japanese companies that maintain traditional Japanese employment systems. However, most of these foreign workers leave such companies after a few years. This has been identified as a problem by some researchers for Japanese companies desiring long-term commitment from their workers. Many studies focusing on the problem propose career development to help Japanese companies retain foreign workers. However, these studies overlook the reason foreign workers choose Japanese companies despite the fit was not being a good one. This study introduces the concepts of “national choice” and “corporate choice” to clearly explain their decision-making process of such career choices.
This article, based on qualitative interviews with 20 foreign workers in large Japanese companies, confirms that few foreign workers preferred their position at their respective companies even when they first chose it. Most of them decided to stay and work in Japan as a national choice―for example, to avoid drifting apart from their partner, or because of disadvantages in the labor markets of their home country or other countries. Others made a corporate choice, selecting the most appropriate company among a variety of Japanese companies because they had lost earlier opportunities to work for foreign companies. This is why foreigners who were not necessarily interested in Japanese companies decided to work in Japan and for a Japanese company. These results suggest that the unavoidable circumstances that force foreigners to work in Japan tend to cause conflicts between foreign workers and Japanese companies.
