Traditionally, personnel department has been viewed as a cost-center in organizations, and therefore personnel management has been considered a secondary staff function which never contributes directly to the enterprise achievement. However, theoretical developments of human capital theory, behavioral sciences, strategic management theory and resource-based theory of the firm after the 1960's and practical movements of “the After Japan” and “the In Search of Excellence” after the 1980's have changed the traditional view of personnel management role. And today, personnel management is emphasized as a major function in organizations which decides the economic success of enterprises. Those details appear the change in technical term from personnel management to human resource management. Then, while the term human resource management (HRM) develops into strategic human resource management (SHRM), personnel management is coming to be viewed as a significant source which gains the sustained competitive advantage of enterprise.

There are three types of SHRM theory. The first type inquires into the strategic fit of personnel systems to business strategies. The second type normatively puts emphasis on “the commitment model” of HRM as best practices. The last type makes efforts to build the HR bundles or configurations as “high performance work practices”, though the posture to inquire into best practices of HRM is the same as that of the second. However, the logic of SHRM has some characteristics: first, SHRM seriously takes the financial performance of enterprise as the success-criteria of personnel management; second, SHRM aims at building high-operational and technical personnel systems; third, SHRM puts a focus on some, not all functions of personnel management. These characteristics may not bring the necessarily desirable advantages to employees.

Gender equality policies at work in Germany consist of 1)targeted promotion of women (e.g. plans to promote women, preferential treatment in recruitment and promotion in certain situations, special training opportunities) and 2)special arrangements for the reconciliation between family and working life (e.g. parental leave, part-time work, child care).

Gender equality policy is obligatory by law in the public sector, but is voluntary in the private sector. In order to encourage the private sector to take positive action, “Total E-Quality” Association was established in 1996 on the initiative of the business society with support of the federal government. In 1997, the first “Total E-Quality” awards were granted to several companies and organizations, who practice a women-friendly policy on personnel.

Most of arrangements for better harmonization of family and work are, as a matter of fact, working time arrangements. Working time arrangements promote gender equality in some cases, while they obstruct gender equality in other cases. Working time policies should be examined from this point of view. For example, it is only mothers who actually to take parental leave in Germany. This situation gives employers good grounds to avoid women as a risk-group. The policy for harmonization of family and work targeted only for women may make weaken the competitiveness of women in the labour market.

In order to encourage fathers to take family responsibilities, the federal government has introduced the new “parental time” in 2001. The new system is based on the partnership-model of the couple, both of whom work part-time and take care of children at the same time.

Part-time work is important as a means of harmonizing family and work and enabling women to work without career breaks. In fact, part-time work has been arranged in principle only for female employees. However, interest in the part-time work also for male employees has been increasing recently based on the viewpoint of employment policy. The federal government promotes the expansion of eligible part-time work by individual reduction of contractual working-time. In this context, part-time work is no more a special working form only for women. The image of part-time work might be improved, if men also choose part-time work according to their own needs at each stage of life. In 2001, the federal government has established the right of employees to request their employers to reduce their contracted working-time without reason of family responsibilities by law. These developments of part-time work can be highly regarded from the viewpoint of the gender equality policy.

It is worth noting, that the policy for better harmonization of family and work is incorporated in the working time policy in Germany. The point of view of gender equality policy should be introduced in the whole working time policy in future in Japan, so that gender inequality is not produced.

There has been growing attention to labor mobility in Japan. However, the voluntary inter-firm mobility rate among full-time workers has not significantly changed in the past ten years. The rate for engineers with general skills is not an exception. In contrast, it is widely recognized that in Silicon Valley, where high technology companies agglomerate, the job mobility rate among engineers is extremely high. This article, first and foremost, analyzes what environmental factors facilitate the frequent job changes in Silicon Valley and incentives for engineers' inter-firm mobility. Secondly, we focus on human resource management in Japanese companies in Silicon Valley. Interviews conducted in 1999 with employees of Japanese companies clarify what policies they have for their job demarcations, recruitment of prospective engineers, education and training, and compensation to retain employees.

The main factor that brings about the high mobility rate is the agglomeration of small high technology firms that provide a wealth of employment opportunities for engineers. In Silicon Valley, high technology industries like semiconductors, computer systems, software, peripherals, and telecommunications equipment are highly developed and fragmented. Each firm is specialized in particular products, process technology and applications with a distinctive market or technical focus. In other words, companies in Silicon Valley concentrate their resources on what they can do best and purchase the remainder from other specialized firms. The knowledge required for engineers working in those specialized firms is "the functional knowledge" about particular components and disciplines. It is not organization-specific and the work for creating new functional knowledge can be divided into narrowly defined jobs. Therefore, each engineer, even if he / she is recruited from other firms, can individually conduct a piece of the segmented work with clearly defined authority and responsibility.

In addition, this region's small specialized firms collaborate and support mutually demanding continuous innovation. Engineers in Silicon Valley informally exchange information and consult one another on technical matters beyond the boundaries between firms. Through this informal communication and cooperation, existing skill and know-how gets recombined with new ideas and technology, then, innovation is created. That is to say, engineers blur the boundaries between firms and create interdependent confederations of project teams. Therefore, inter-firm mobility in Silicon Valley is as easy as a transfer between departments within a firm.

Employment agencies, headhunters, and educational institutions also play a crucial role in the region's mobile labor market. Educational institutions provide continuing education and training needed in a fast-changing technological environment and help engineers gain the qualifications needed to move to higher salary jobs. Developed service infrastructures such as venture capitalists, law firms, consultants, advertising and public relations firms, etc. support start-up firms, which create opportunities for employed engineers to become independent entrepreneurs.

Engineers who have innovative ideas but can't realize them in their current organizations due to resource constraints start new companies or move to other organizations with members of their project teams. Engineers also change companies, demanding career advancement and better compensation packages that include pay increases, generous benefits and stock options. The stock option that offers opportunity to become very rich is a significantly important incentive for job change in Silicon Valley.

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E-Commerce has been the main stream nowadays, the major focus in this new wave is to leverage the new technology via Internet, to extends personalized e-Marketing, to provide better web experiences and finally, to build up new brand images. In the new e-Era, to own the Enterprise Portal site is essential to the modernized enterprise.

As Enterprise Portal becomes popular, the “Excellent Enterprise Portal” should contain the “Communication Wizard” to help visitors go through Enterprise Portal easier, also, the quality of the contents is the competitive factor; meanwhile, Enterprise Portal should fulfill visitors needs and promote enterprise image via providing a nice web site experiences.

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the human resources information posted on the Enterprise Portal of top 5 companies based on Japan, Taiwan and USA, checking the information provided, the differences, then identify the essential factors for a “Excellent Enterprise Portal”.