HRM research on Japanese organizations in the twenty-first century

Human resource management (HRM) encompasses a number of organizational activities that involve the management of people, organizations, and work. Development of a new HRM practice stimulates research on that practice. Increased popularity of a practice increases research on that practice. Hence, the evolution of industry HRM practices influences the trend of academic HRM research. To evaluate the current state of academic research on HRM, this chapter reviews studies that examined HRM in Japanese organizations since 2001, the time period in which a decrease in the presence of HRM research is witnessed. The chapter focuses on four major streams: evolution of the Japanese national HRM, comparative HRM, HRM in Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs), and antecedents and consequences of HRM. It points to three topics that have the good potential to achieve this: diversity management, global HRM, and HRM in hospitality industries.