can be seen as perhaps the primary contributing factor to Japan's economic strength. In order to investigate these contentions, this research will first examine the history of Japanese culture and economy, apply these lessons to the operations of individual corporations, and then assess how paternalistic business practices affect aggregate economic development in Japan.
Japanese cultural history substantially influences that nation's labor relations practices and business activities. Japanese society expects harmony between workers and their employers as well as between institutions of society, which contrasts sharply with the expectations of conflict evident in the United States.
Japan's attitudes toward business and social organization have been formed by its peculiar geography, culture and history. Japan remained isolated from the rest of the world for long periods and, out of this isolation, developed a cohesive society that was not subject to many innovations brought by traders and immigrants. Traditional Japan was an agriculturally-based feudal society in which social status regulated relationships between individuals (Reischaer, 1974, pp. 114-121). Although civil wars disrupted this social cohesiveness at several points in history, the Tokugawa Shogunate-a system of social organization which emerged in the early 17th century-established roughly 250 years of peaceful, stable feudal life (Mason and Caiger, 1972, pp. 126-130). Social change was infrequent, and family ties to farming created long-term personal relations within society.
Social developments outside of Japan did not really have much relevance to Japanese society. Japan was in essence a unified agrarian estate with daimyo sub-estates. Agricultural products were more or less allotted before they were planted. After the chaos and strife of earlier generations, the cohesiveness and stability was welcome.
Japan's religion and philosophies complemented...