In Japan, many small companies go out of business every year, and the primary reason for these closures is the lack of a successor of their business. On the other hand, it is overwhelmingly men, especially the eldest son, who inherit their family business and many managers believe that it is their son who should take over their family business, so there are very few cases of women taking over family businesses. Thus, in the situation where the general perception is that “successors to the family business is a man”, what made daughters decided to take over their family business?

In this research, I interviewed 5 female managers who succeeded their family businesses, focusing on how their mentality and sensibility, which were rooted in themselves through their life experiences and family history, led to their decision to take over the family business.

As a result, it became clear that behind the decision of women to take over the family business, there are mentalities and sensibilities cultivated and internalized through contacts with the family business from childhood, relationships with the family and business and knowing the family’s feelings about the family business and products through their daily life.

The study aimed to clarify the impact of childcare worker staffing levels on on Childcare Practices and Childcare Labor. The analysis is conducted with careful attention to differences in staffing levels across facilities, based on variations in municipal policies regarding childcare worker staffing.The study employed a case study design involving five facilities across five municipalities. There are two types of childcare policies: those set by the National Government and those set by municipalities. Securing sufficient staff distribution and labor conditions in childcare solely through the National Government’s childcare policies has been deemed impossible. Supplemental policies implemented by municipalities are intended to compensate for the shortcomings of the Government policies. However, municipal childcare policies differ significantly across municipalities, and little is known about the details of these differences. In particular, while childcare worker staffing policies vary significantly between municipalities, the details of these differences are largely unknown. Furthermore, the impact of staffing differences based on the municipality where a facility is located on childcare workers’ job content and working conditions has not been analyzed.

A case study was conducted to address this gap, Case studies conducted to bridge this gap revealed differences in childcare worker staffing policies among the municipalities where participating facilities were located. The case study revealed differences in childcare worker staffing policies among the municipalities where participating facilities are located. Furthermore, several characteristics were identified as shared among participating facilities. For instance, facilities located in municipalities with inadequate childcare worker staffing policies had fewer childcare worker, and the proportion of non-regular employees among childcare workers responsible for a class was greater than at other participating facilities. Another shared characteristic was the absence of floating childcare workers in participating facilities, which had a significant impact on the approach and labor conditions of childcare workers. Notably, workers in these facilities were required to deal with various extra duties, such as attending staff meetings at night or weekends, challenges in securing deskwork hours, sudden changes in work shift due to other workers’ absence from vacations, the cutoff of class-based activity hours, and unexpected mixed-age care duties, and even the director or chief of staff have to perform childcare duties from time to time to compensate the labor force shortcomings. The approach and labor conditions of childcare workers in these facilities were generally unstable. They were also low in the number of paid holidays workers took.

The results of this study revealed that the impact of childcare worker staffing levels by insufficient childcare policies directly leads not only to low “structural quality” but also to low “process quality” in childcare practice. The existence of a dilemma in securing care practice quality was also confirmed: prioritizing “process quality” led to insufficient “structural quality,” while ensuring “structural quality” resulted in inadequate “process quality.”

For-profit corporations are increasingly involved in the management of financially struggling small- and medium-sized hospitals in Japan, yet their influence on professional autonomy and organizational structures remains insufficiently examined. This study presents a qualitative single-case analysis of a 100-bed hospital, drawing on interviews, lecture records, employee reviews, and corporate data. Corporate participation reshaped the traditional dual authority structure-defined by administrative and professional logics-by shifting from a tripolar model of director, professionals, and administrative staff to a quadripolar model incorporating the corporation, thereby creating ambiguity and intensifying organizational politics. The corporation rapidly opened a COVID-19 ward by recruiting external physicians and relying heavily on short-term contingent nurses, which enabled profitability and a high designation rate as a priority COVID-19 facility. However, dependence on contingent nurses weakened collaboration, disrupted task organization, and led to overwhelmingly negative employee evaluations of the work environment and organizational trust. The study identifies a two-layered solidarity model in professional labor, whereby a professional task community for patient care must precede an organizational community, and once disrupted, cannot be sustained by continuance incentives such as higher allowances or improved benefits. Ultimately, the hospital experienced nurse resignations, strategic conflicts, and weakened administrative coordination, leading to corporate withdrawal and transfer of ownership, while divergent institutional logics within professional societies further shaped physicians’ decisions. The study contributes by conceptualizing the quadripolar authority model, demonstrating the role of external professional associations, and advancing the two-layered solidarity model in professional labor.

This study examines the distinctive characteristics of emotional labor that is mediated primarily through voice, focusing on the arts of interaction and resistance.

Since the theory of emotional labor was first proposed by Hochschild, the voice has attracted attention as its key medium; however, its characteristics have not received considerable attention to date. Moreover, the topic of emotional labor in call centers using the telephone as a tool remains underexplored. Quantitative research on the negative psychological effects of emotional labor has hitherto been the main focus, while the arts used to perform emotional labor in interactive situations have not yet been discussed.

In contrast, this study, based on a qualitative analysis of call center operations at Company X, clarified that emotional labor mediated only by voice is characterized by circular dynamics. Specifically, while information in the form of voice carries increasing weight, it remains uncertain. The telephone, as a tool, creates the two sides of emotion management art by establishing the setting of local regional separation, as described by Goffman. Finally, this study examined the concept of collective emotion management as an art for resisting the negative effects of emotional labor without engaging in unconventional emotion management.

In recent years, Japan has increased efforts to attract women into employment. As a result, number of female workers in the forestry industry has increased slightly. This study investigates gender segregation as experienced by women who enter the male-dominated workplace of forestry. For this study, I conducted interviews mainly with women forestry workers. I found, first, that it is said in modern forestry that “women are better suited for machinery.” Second, I found that gender segregation of work duties, where men are responsible for logging and women for work with heavy machinery. Third, I found that women’s responses in the field changed the distribution of work and reorganized the gender segregation of duties.

This study aims to clarify the criteria for making a living in music by examining the careers of musicians in rock bands who pursue the dream of “succeeding in music.” What does it mean to make music your job, and how can this be achieved? Previous studies have addressed various issues, including career instability, faced by those engaged in the fields of culture, art, and entertainment. However, several studies have primarily focused on the careers of established professionals in these fields, often neglecting the processes leading up to this stage of professional establishment. Ultimately, the question of how individuals make a living through creative labor has not been adequately addressed. This study adopts an early career perspective to analyze the process through which rock musicians turn music into their career over time. The study used data from interviews with four musicians, who met the inclusion criteria, out of the 77 musicians targeted. After detailing their early career trajectories, we analyzed the hurdles they had to overcome in making a living in music. The results revealed two main challenges: the burden of ticket sales quotas, which they had to avoid or reduce until it became less significant, and the importance of using prior information to secure the most suitable music agency or label. Subsequently, career sustainability becomes a matter of the capacity to continue musical activities over time. Professionalizing in music takes various forms, ranging from supporting band activities through the income generated by the band while covering living expenses through other work, to sustaining one’s livelihood solely through band activities and other music-related work. Finally, this study highlights the importance of recognizing these diverse career patterns when considering a career in the fields of culture, arts, and entertainment.　

The fiscal year employment system, which began in April 2020, legalized a one-year employment period. This has raised issues regarding the maintenance of employment of non-regular local government public employees. The purpose of this paper is therefore to clarify the factors behind the success of local government employee labor unions in maintaining the employment of non-regular public employees. The subject of this study was the Koshigaya City Employees’ Union. Although the union had considered a system that would have allowed non-regular employees to maintain employment without relying on a fiscal year contract system, this did not come to fruition. Next, the union challenged the de facto permanence of employment under the fiscal year contract system. The union tried to solve this problem by applying the principle that, in a civil service system, necessary positions are created and employees are assigned to them. The union asked for a definition of a part-time employee who is assigned to a necessary position in the city government and whether that position lasts longer than one year. Rather than simply applying the legally mandated fiscal year contract system, the union took steps to prioritize confirmation of maintained employment through collective agreements. As a result, the union succeeded in placing part-time employees in employment for more than one year under the fiscal year contract system. This case study showed that there is a contradiction between the existence of jobs that last for more than one year and the system of fiscal year contracts that is divided into one-year one year segments, and that it is possible for local government employee unions to achieve maintained employment by forcing the local government to resolve this contradiction.

This study analyzed the interviews with five female non-regular librarians to examine their working environment as professional. Their narratives about their workplace environments and employment conditions (their job titles, employment status, name tag, annual income, years of service, family structure, working hours and working days, treatment of overtime work, second job, personnel systems, labor union in their workplace, qualification and training, evaluation system and employment renewal) indicate that their experiences are discrimination of gender and “non-regular” position in their workplace. They continue to work at low-paid for a long time, take on mental load for limited-term employment, exposure to microaggression by permanent employees, and some of them can not identify as a librarian. They have librarian certification and dedicate to self-improvement but they can not be obtained training for guaranteeing professional in their workplace. Therefore, they can not raise voice against their situation although they realise the problem about structure of their low wages. They are placed on different situations from permanent employees, it is said that their experiences are discrimination because of categories of gender and “non-regular”.