This paper is concerned with a new social-scientific method for analyzing the socioeconomic system formed under the power of the corporate system and for analyzing the corporate system in social context. The modern corporate system forms a complex network of economic and social exchange among various subjects and institutions; Economic activities have a strong tendency to be concerned in social, political, and cultural spheres. Social science has, however, failed to analyze the whole system because of the excessive specializing of its disciplines. Faced with this problem, we propose a trans-disciplinary approach which analyzes the social and economic roles and mechanisms of the corporate system, discussing its social and historical context. In preparation to theorize our new approach, we examine the following three basic subjects. 1) Methodology: We point out the limitation of positivism, the fiction of objectivism, the trap of excessive specialization, and the restriction of linear hypothesis. 2) Ideology of Americanism: We have believed the economic and management system imported from America since World War II to be universal; We should, however, recognize that the system is not universal but reflects the social and historical context in modern America. 3) Issues of pragmatism/practicalism: owing to the "industrialization" of social sciences, both business administration and economics have been institutionalized. In other words, the exploitability of science has been prompted by management concerns. Finally, we propose the Corporate-Social System Theory in order to analyze the corporate system in social context. In this paper, we just sketch the outline of the theory. Our emphasis is placed on the following three important subjects: self-organizing mechanism of the corporate system, process of territorializing social sphere by the corporate system, and social movements de-territorializing the boundary of the system, fluctuating and reconstructing the corporate-social system in everyday life.

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Japanese firms have been confronted by serious environmental changes. One of the changes is the structural change in the market. Many Japanese firms have been trying to adapt themselves to this change by strategic organizational innovation. One of the important characteristics of the innovation is that organizations depend more on the bottom-up process in the formation of business strategy. Another environmental change lies in the relation between business organizations and society. Recently Japanese firms again faced severe criticism from society. They have been answering to it by corporate philanthropy. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between strategic organizational innovation and corporate philanthropy. The hypothesis of this paper is that the more corporate philanthropy is connected to the firms' business, the more should it reinforce organizational innovation. In other words corporate philanthropy outside the core firms' business, such as donations, would have less spill-over effects on organizational innovation. The paper examines Fuji Xerox and tries to verify the hypothesis. The author could gain qualitative information from the employees of Fuji Xerox who had been voluntarily engaged in the activities of producing socially useful products. The important point is that the activities were strongly connected to the employees' daily jobs in the organization. Analyzing the information, the hypothesis mentioned above is basically supported. The paper also suggests some practical implications.

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I. Purpose of Study A temporary worker means a worker who is employed by a temporary agency and works under the direction of a client company. In Japan the number of temporary workers is gradually increasing and is over 580,000 in 1994. Especially the number of registered employees is dramatically increasing from 87,370 in 1986 to 437,000 in 1994. In the 1st step this study analyzes what factors determine organizational commitment to the temporary agency and the client company. And in the 2nd step this study analyzes how temporary workers are involved in their jobs and discusses effective Human Resource Management. II. Method Subjects were drawn from a staff list of a temporary agency A. Survey was conducted from early to last in March in 1996. Questionnaires were collected by mail and additional interviews were conducted. The number of collected questionnaires is 431, and the collection rate is 25.8 percent. III. Analysis ◎ the 1st step Organizational commitment is defined in terms of the strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in a particular organization (Porter, Steers, Mowday & Boulian, 1974). This study hypothesizes that (1) work consciousness, (2) job satisfaction, and (3) personal characteristics are determinants of organizational commitment. Multiple regression analysis was conducted in order to discuss what predictors determine organizational commitment to the temporary agency and the client company. ◎ the 2nd Step In the 2nd step temporary workers are divided into four groups based on organizational commitment patterns. The purpose of this step is to analyze how temporary workers in each group are involved in their jobs. In this study job involvement is the degree to which a person is identified psychologically with his (her) work, or the importance of work in his (her) total self-image (Lodahl & Kejner, 1965). From the results of multiple comparison of job involvement among four groups by one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) and Bonferroni test, scores of job involvement are significantly (p<.05) different among four organizational commitment patterns. IV. Conclusions and Future Directions for Research In the 1st step it is clear what determinants of organizational commitment are common by comparing organizational commitment to the temporary agency with to the client company. So effective Human Resource Management for the temporary agency and the client company are proposed. Future research needs to consider the effect of personnel policy and Human Resource Development program. And in this step this study focuses on the determinants of organizational commitment. So future research should consider outcomes of organizational commitment. In the 2nd step this study shows that scores of job involvement are significantly different among four organizational commitment patterns. Future research needs to consider and discuss determinants of job involvement and relationship between organizational commitment and job involvement.

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The notion of "teamwork" has been paid more attention to in the 1990's than before in the Western countries by not only practitioners but also academics. But even if we focus just on the academic debates the understanding of what is meant by teamwork differs by researchers, especially on international basis. Although Japanese work organization has been said to be one of the roots of teamwork, few research has been made on the Japanese work organization from the view point of teamwork. This circumstance may lead to an unfavourable situation where futile discussions are continued among academics, especially in international conversation because of the lack of a common understanding of terms and definition about teamwork. The purpose of this article is to provide the first step towards building up a common understanding of teamwork in its debates. In this article, teamwork is limited to that functioning at the work organization level in manufacturing industries. After reviewing several articles, following points are proposed. First, in the worldwide debate on teamwork, much attention has been paid to "autonomy" but the meaning of autonomy that has been recognised was diverse. Secondly, two axes, economic axis and empowerment axis, are needed to identify the type of teamwork. Next, teamwork is mainly based on the concept, "one team, one task", which is utterly different from the Tayloristic "one man, one job" concept. Finally, multi-skilling is held as a key feature of teamwork and is analysed from a point of view of socio-technical systems approach which is the basic theory of "autonomous work group" that has been said as one of the origins of current teamwork. At the end of this article, some more hurdles that have to be cleared to accomplish our aim are mentioned in order for this topic to be discussed more fruitfully.

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Although a great deal of effort has been made on the analysis of the cognitive side of organizational life, little is known about how the members interpret organizational change. This paper applies the attribution theory to the organizational change study. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the causal attribution of an organizational change affects an attitude toward change, and to examine the moderating effect of the organizational schema on the relationship. Using a questionnaire survey, 180 employees (113 firms) who experienced a planned organizational change in their firm were asked about their interpretation of the change. The findings were as follows: First, two types of causal attribution influenced the attitude toward change. That is, the more a person interpreted that an organizational change took place because of a member's power and not of conflicts in the firm, the more his/her attitude toward change became positive. Second, an organizational schema moderated the relationship between the causal attribution and the attitude toward change. That is, the positive relationship between the attribution to member's power and the attitude toward change was identified only among persons who had the innovation-schema for their firm. Third, the contents of an organizational change did not show strong effect on the causal attribution. Theoretical and practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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Recently the term 'rationality' has had negative impressions in the field of management study. I think, however, social legitimation is given to organizations under the framework of Capitalism, only after they have some results for their goals considered to be useful for us. Thus it can be said that firms always act under the influence of rationality. This paper tries to analyze organizational rationality in firms using works from organization theory. In this paper, I regard, first the concept of rationality in traditional management theory as of formal organization, which can be called 'complete rationality model'; second the concept of rationality in Barnard-Simon theory as such in consideration of interaction between formal and informal organization, which can be called 'bounded rationality model'; third the concept of rationality in contingency theory as such in consideration of interaction between organizations and environments, which can be called 'organizational rationality model'. Among them, I think, the third model might have the biggest effect on analyzing firms since 1970, and then I analyze the movement of Japanese and American firms using it. The organizational rationality model seems to be based on 'Organizations in Action' by Thompson [1967]. There, he notes that organizational rationality involves three major component activities: input activities, technological activities, and output activities. And he argues that under norms of rationality organizations seek to seal off their core technologies from environmental influences. And then he regards the administrative process in such model as a process spanning and linking three organizational levels: technical, managerial, and institutional. As a result, I point out that lately (especially since 1990) both Japanese and American firms are apt to overestimate matters at technical level, and suggest that it is necessary to review firms from the broader perspective which encompasses matters at institutional and managerial levels.

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In this paper, we shall examine modernization of the medical supplies distribution system in Japan, which is said to need immediate reform. The Japanese medical supplies distribution system has been very complicated and hard to understand. Therefore, the Ministry of Health and Welfare introduced the new distribution system, which is consisted of the new price system, "Shin Shikirika Seido", and the new medicine price computation method, "Shin Yakka Santei Houshiki". We investigate the meaning of the distribution reform in the paper, focusing in particular on the influence of the new price system. We argue that: (1) Manufacturer profit depended on the amount of the compensation money to the wholesaler before the reform. If the compensation was above a certain amount of money before the reform, manufacture, profit increases after the reform. (2) After the reform, wholesaler profit increases. (3) The medicine price margin of each medical organization decreases after the reform. We conclude that the distribution reform was an effective means to decrease "medical price margin" income of medical organizations and restrain overdosing. Moreover, we find the fact that the new distribution system can possibly yield more profit for the manufacturer and the wholesaler than under the older system.

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