In the Japanese IT industry, there is a marked shortage of IT human resources due to the expansion of IT utilization and e-business, the aging of system engineers, deteriorating working conditions, difficulties in technology succession, and the diversification and sophistication of technology acquisition. The supply of IT human resources is continually unable to keep up with the ever-increasing demand, it is becoming difficult to secure IT human resources year by year, and the shortage is expected to continue in the future. In Japanese information system development, overseas IT human resources, such as those obtained through offshore development, are actively utilized to make up for the IT human resource shortage. Recently, a new offshore development business model has been developed, in which foreign engineers who wish to work for Japanese IT companies come to Japan to develop information systems, through international cooperation between Japan and developing countries; and a win-win relationship has been established in offshore development involving international cooperation, between Japan and neighboring South Korea and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In this study, offshore development involving international cooperation is defined as a development method involving on-site service in offshore development outsourced to overseas, or offshore development utilizing foreigners. After a general examination of the concept, we consider the current state and issues regarding offshore development involving international cooperation between Japan, Nepal, and South Korea.

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Following the earthquake-triggered nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, local hospitals outside the evacuation zone remained functional, but some of the employees were temporarily absent. This study aims to elucidate long-term workplace experiences based on work-attendance decisions among nurses working under conditions of uncertainty in hospitals operating outside, yet near, the former evacuation zone at the time. Twenty-seven nurses (including those who were temporarily absent) from seven hospitals were interviewed. The data were analyzed using the grounded theory method. We placed the workplace experiences of nurses into two core categories: “repeatedly choosing whether to attend work or not regardless of one’s emotions” and “going through parallel inconsistencies in the functioning workplace.” Our findings demonstrated the lasting impact of work-attendance decisions on nurses’ workplace experiences after the disaster. The findings could be useful in understanding hospital nurses who work under conditions of continuous uncertainty.

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Research conducted into the areas of guanxi and family business has lasted for decades. Nevertheless, little research has been carried out to combine the two areas. Since the behaviour of family firms has been labelled as more emotional when compared to nonfamily businesses, it is assumable that guanxi, which is also closely associated with human emotions, should be dealt with differently in the context of family businesses. By adopting a case study method, this study investigates guanxi in four large, Taiwanese-owned, multinational Chinese family businesses in order to elucidate whether or not quanxi has altered over time in the Chinese family business setting as formal institutions have become more developed. Our findings reveal that, in general, very few changes have indeed occurred to guanxi in the family firms we studied as formal institutions have become more developed.

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Post-disaster tourism is an important reconstruction strategy for communities affected by natural disasters. In shrinking rural communities that also experience depopulation and aging as general trends, the need to develop proactive resilient practices for disaster management and sustainable development is a pressing requirement. Our longitudinal, multi-method study carried out in a Japanese rural coastal town affected by the 2011 Tsunami sheds light on the attributes and mechanisms by which a post-disaster education tourism initiative which was led and co-delivered by the community in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders enhanced community resilience and led to sustainable practices of post-disaster reconstruction. We provide empirical insights into how community resilience and sustainable tourism development were achieved through the careful development and balancing of economic, social and environmental capital. Our study contributes to existing debates regarding the relationship between community resilience and sustainability in the tourism field by illustrating how community resilience and sustainability are mutually re-enforcing dimensions which can be achieved via post-disaster education tourism.

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