This study focuses on the concept of ʻtask distance,ʼ a quantitative measure that assesses changes in job content before and after changing jobs. It examines gender differences in the correlation between previous occupational experience and task distance after job changes. It also clarifies the relationship between task distance and income changes after changing jobs. Utilizing data from two sources—the Survey on Job Change, Skill Development, and Career Formation of Middle-Aged Workers and the Occupational Information Network of Japan—the study revealed the following results. Firstly, the relationship between previous occupational experience and task distance differs by gender. Male technical professionals engaged in specialized technical tasks tend to change jobs with a smaller task distance compared to male routine clerical workers. However, this trend is not observed among women. Furthermore, female managerial, sales, and non-routine clerical workers engaged in non-routine interactive or analytical tasks tend to change jobs with a greater task distance compared to female routine clerical workers. Nevertheless, similar to men, female technical professionals without constraints due to family or health issues and in a position to sustain regular employment tend to change jobs with a smaller task distance. Secondly, job changes with smaller task distances tend to reduce the decline in income after job changes. The findings imply that when women face constraints due to family or health issues or are unable to secure regular employment, the advanced skills of women with more extensive job experience may not be optimally utilized after job changes. An effective development of the labor market is necessary for efficiently leveraging the advanced skills of women.

This paper applied the perspective of horizontal fit among HR policies discussed in the field of Strategic Human Resource Management（SHRM） to mid-career recruitment, and examined the effects of horizontal fit of mid-career recruitment policies on recruiting outcomes. Specifically, we used data obtained from a questionnaire survey of 321 mid-career recruitment professionals to analyze the effects of mid-career recruitment policies（workforce planning, recruitment, and selection） on three recruiting outcomes （number of hires, period of recruitment, and quality of hires） and the effects of horizontal fit of mid-career recruitment policies, in other words, the interaction effects of workforce planning, recruitment, and selection.

As a result, selection had a significant and positive impact on period to hire, and workforce planning, selection, and the interaction of workforce planning, recruitment, and selection had significant positive impacts on the quality of hires. However, no significant variables were found to impact the number of hires.

This study has two main theoretical implications. First, it examined the bundle of policies to enhance the outcomes of mid-career recruitment in Japanese companies. While previous recruitment studies have examined the impact of individual policies on recruiting outcomes, the study of bundles has been less common. Discovered one such bundle of mid-career recruitment policies from a horizontal fit perspective is useful for future research. Second, it enables a more minute discussion of the relationship between HRM and organizational performance. In previous studies, there was hardly any research on the fit within the subsystems of human resource management. By addressing fit within the subsystems, researchers get the key to solving the mechanisms through which High-Performance Work Systems（HPWS） contribute to organizational performance has been suggested.

This paper examines how freelance animators who belong to an organization can manage their temporal order based on longitudinal fieldwork in an animation studio in Japan. While there has been a growing interest in freelance work as a new way of working recently, few discussions have been made regarding freelancers who work at organizations. To address this issue, this paper employs the concept of “schedule gift,” which depicts the risk of losing discretions that workers have due to the workerʼs dept to their manager who “kindly” arrange the schedule or shift of workers. Previous research on schedule gifts lacks the examination of the requirements and their positive meaning for freelancers.

Animators think that their belonging provides them with the risk hedge and opportunity for good jobs. While they often experience a change in their schedule, some of them are not considered gifts because the company causes the delay. On the contrary, schedule gifts work when animators find an opportunity to get a decent job and receive support owing to the managerial effort of the organization. This gift also has a positive meaning for animators because it offers not only coordination of their schedule but also higher quality of jobs.

Although vertical fit between business strategy and HRM is an essential topic in strategic human resource management （SHRM） research, it has yet to be sufficiently explored empirically. In particular, few studies examine vertical fit between business strategy and HRM from the perspective of flexibility, conceptualized as the organizational ability to maintain vertical fit even in the face of environmental and strategic change.

This study examines the effect of vertical fit between flexibility-oriented business strategy and flexibility-oriented HRM （FHRM） using two-wave data during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine whether organizational resilience as a strategic human resource, fostered by vertical fit between flexibility-oriented business strategy and FHRM, is observed in the adversity due to COVID-19.

The result shows an interaction effect between flexibility-oriented business strategy and FHRM on organizational resilience in the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic: firms that had adopted FHRM have higher levels of organizational resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this tendency is found to be stronger the more the firm had emphasized flexibility-oriented business strategy since before then. This result suggests that the vertical fit between flexibility-oriented business strategy and FHRM effectively shapes organizational resilience as strategic human capital.