ABSTRACT
Modern Japanese firms are required to build a human resource portfolio system (HRPS) which rationalizes the diversification of employment categories and the transition among separate groups of employees in the internal labor markets, instead of a dichotomy based on two types of employment status, that is, regular employees and non-regular employees. The specific objectives of this research are: (1) to build the concept of HRPS based on transaction cost economics with reference to previous research concerning employment portfolios; (2) to develop HRPS measurement criteria by combining human asset specificity and uncertainty within tasks, then ascertaining the validity of HRPS by examining the results of questionnaires sent to 459 businesses in Osaka Prefecture; and (3) to consider the functionality of the diversification and transition among employment categories from the HRPS perspective in the Japanese context.
