The technology transfer of Japanese enterprises has not been highly valued to the present in China. One reason is that the foreign market entry strategy of Japanese enterprises is different from that of European and American enterprises, another is that the understanding on the Chinese side concerning the transfer of high-engineering technology, which is characterized by way of OJT (on the job-training) that merges the individual and the organization, has not deepened yet. In connection with this, the Japanese enterprises in China have to face the problem of the personalization of knowledge when implementing technology transfer and human development. In comparison with the high context society in Japan, Chinese society lays between a high context and a low context society. In China, that differs from Japan, that has a consciousness of belonging like not letting in the personal side (I, watakushi) as a part of the institution (public, ooyake), importance is given to the network of personal relations, the institution (kou) as a connection element is easily linked with the individual (shi) and the behavioral patterns of the people is related more and more to the ego. The people who gave up the security of the state's work unit system and began working at foreign enterprises are sensitive to income, and younger people have a strong preference for European and American enterprises. Dealing with the personalization of knowledge and know-how and engaging in making knowledge and know-how to be explicit knowledge, there have appeared enterprises that proceed technology transfer well by introducing a clear assessment and a judgment system lying in individual management, and being successful in improving. In order to promote the activity and personality of Chinese employees, there are also enterprises that improve the productivity by meeting the challenge of building an organization and a system of treating personal affairs that applies to the locality.

The Japanese enterprises entering foreign countries that carry a core competence of common sharing of knowledge which helped the creation of knowledge are also demanded in the labor system, to separate from the homeland-centered way and for a ability to approach to the environmental variety of another culture. In the organization of enterprises that enter foreign countries, the top management, by becoming familiar with heterogeneous local environment, presents a parameter for the organization in general. Applying this method, the commitment of the local middle managers is promoted, they become agents who connect the strategy information from the top with the local micro information. The lower workers get involved in this process, and the transformation and common sharing of knowledge, and finally the creation of knowledge can be realized.

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In order to prepare for the coming “participatory social partnership between men and women,” current corporate conditions, especially in regard to family policies must be examined through detailed case studies. As the voice calling for nation-wide implementation of childcare programs grows louder, the need to carefully consider the role corporate daycare centers play in women's labor participation grows stronger.

This research examines childcare services and on-site center offered by a company, as well as the influences the center has on the advancement of women's careers. The main issues considered are: 1) What is this corporate daycare center like? 2) How does the corporate daycare center operate? 3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of the center? 4) What is the nature of the corporate philosophy of this particular company?

The case examined in this study is that of the top-ranked company for working women, located in the heart of Tokyo, which offers an on-site daycare center. Conditions of this daycare center and its operations will be examined, with attention to metropolitan commuting conditions, sick-time care, security, cost and corporate philosophy.

This case study will suggest future tasks for the provision of daycare centers as part of corporate family policy so as to assist employees' career development. While the importance of the company's role in supporting employees' balancing of work and family life is growing, society as a whole needs to seek the means to solve childcare problems for future generations where men and women will participate together in the workplace.

This study aims to compare career development patterns of managers in large retailing in Japan and the U.S. Here the targets are not managers in the stores, which have been discussed in the previous studies, but the managers in the marketing/sales, finance/accounting, and human resources functions in the head office or in the regional head office. The data of 226 retail managers exclusively selected from the larger data set collected by the Japan Institute of Labor are used. This study mainly analyzes the managers' vertical and horizontal job careers within the company. Also the study discusses their relation to the length of appraisal period in which “decisive selection” of managers for further promotion takes place. The vertical job careers mean promotion and selection, and such issues as degrees of the internal promotion practices, the timing of decisive selection, fast trucking, and the effectiveness of professional qualifications for the promotion are discussed. The horizontal job careers mean the span of job experiences within the company, managers' job experiences in different functions and the groundwork is discussed.

Main findings are as follows: As regards the vertical job careers, first of all, a high turnover rate of managers in the U.S. are found as expected. The years of services of managers who experienced turnover, however, were not so much short not as expected and some of them stayed with the current company for a relatively long time. Second, the fast truck system for managers that are commonly found in the U.S., was not especially widespread in retailing. Third, the decisive selection which determines the winners in later progression opportunities is set later in Japan, whereas that is set earlier in the U.S. Accordingly, the appraisal period for the decisive selection becomes longer in Japan than in the U.S.

Concerning the horizontal job careers, the span of functional experience and the nature of the groundwork are largely common in the finance/accounting and the human resources in both countries. On the other hand, there is a large difference in the span of functional experiences in the marketing/sales, though the groundwork is equally valued in both countries. Japanese marketing/sales manager managers experience a wide span of jobs in the “A-fields” defined in terms of specific sub-functions within the marketing area such as selling, buying, and marketing. They experience a narrow span of jobs in the “B-field ” defined in terms of marketing targets such as product mix, sales districts and regions, and customers. The opposite is the case with American marketing/sales managers.

Because it needs longer time to master skills in the A-field than in the B-field, Japanese marketing/sales managers can experience multiple A-field skills before the decisive selection and receive appraisals in the longer term. Conversely, American marketing/sales managers can not help pursuing the experience in the B field rather than A field, because the decisive selection is made earlier and that does not give managers long enough time to broaden experiences in the A field nor the employers appraise them. In sum, it can be pointed out that the career development pattern is consistent with the length of appraisal period in both counties. This is the most important implication from this study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between corporate culture and employees' career plateau and was two fold. A career plateau was defined as the point in a career where the likelihood of additional hierarchical promotion is very low (Ference, Stoner, & Warren,1977).

The first one was to investigate the relationship between organizatioal types about employment and promotional customs and employees' career plateau.

The second one was to investigate the relationship between types of employees' perception about executive selection system in their organizations and their career plateau.

The facts and conclusions in this paper were drawn by using 237 executives who are all chief of a section in ten big companies and 10 personnel executives.

About the first one, after using an analysis of variance, employees' positional tenure and perceived promotion opportunity weren't different in their organizational types about employment and promotional customs. It was clear that employees' career plateau are similar in various organizational types about employment and promotional customs.

About the second one, after using an analysis of variance, employees' positional tenure were different in types of their perception about executive selection system in their organizations. On the other hand, employees' perceived promotion opportunity weren't different in them. It was clear that employees' objective career plateau are different in types of their perception about executive selection system in their organizations.

The implications of these findings were discussed. In particular, not only types of employees' perception about executive selection system in their organizations based on distributive justice principle but also those based on equal distribution principle was connected with their objective career plateau.

Literature on strategic human resource management points out the importance of aligning human resource management (HRM) with corporate-level business strategies. The purposes of this paper are two holds: One is to examine a strategic HRM proposition that having employees committed to a corporate mission would reap better results. Another is to report major characteristics of HRM a subsidiary of Japanese multinational corporation puts into practice.

The primary data were collected at an electric/electronics firm that is located in North America. The following characterizes the HRM of this firm, some of which share similarities with preceding studies of auto manufacturing industry: Careful screening of applicants; team-working in which team members help each other; cooperative employer-employees relationships on the basis of small group activities; workers' participation in job-related subjects; introductory orientations to management trainees with the view to advance their corporate-wide viewpoint; education and training of managers under a global scheme to enhance their commitment to the corporate mission.

The Multiple Classification Analysis of the questionnaire survey shows the following: The plant managers most strongly identify themselves with the firm. There is no statistically significant difference in identification with and commitment to the corporate mission between the local office workers and the Japanese expatriates. There is no significant difference in terms of decision-making procedures, either. The plant managers contribute to foster the horizontal coordination in the firm.

The authors conclude, on the basis of the interviews with the key persons at the company, that the strategic HRM appeared to contribute to secure good performance on the part of local employees.

Many Large Corporations have begun to introduce Diversified Personnel Management System after the enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law. Indeed the Equal Employment Opportunity Law has increased the opportunity of employment for young female workers with high education attainment and has improved the working conditions of female workers, but female workers are placed to narrowly defined jobs such as sales job, clerk, date processing job, and there are gender discrimination with respect to recruitement, hiring, job assignment, promotion, training. In addition, Diversified Personnel Management System has theoretical weakpoints against difficulties of division of task between Major Carrer Path (Sogo-shoku) and Minor Carrer Path (Ippan-shoku). Therefore Diversified Personnel Management System involves problems to solve in order to forbid discriminations against for female workers in recruitement, hiring, assignment, promotion, training. This paper discusses these theoretical and practical problems in connection with the positive utilization of female workers by means of the past several researches for Diversified Personnel Management System. I arrived at a conclusion that Minor Career Path (Ippan-shoku) will be gradually integrated to Major Career Path (Sogo-shoku), and Diversified Personnel Management System will be finally abolished in order to utilize female workers as human assets of corporation. Further I want to point out that even if Diversified Personnel Management System will be finally abolished, Personnel Management based on job-group will enable corporation to introduce personnel management based on career path.