ABSTRACT
How firms are organised is an essential element in defining different forms of capitalism. Indeed, each national form of capitalism has been identified in terms of the organisation of its firms, which are assumed to be homogeneous, or even defined in terms of their organisation. This is particularly true for the Japanese firm, which tends to embody Japanese capitalism in its very self (Hall & Soskice, 2001; Jackson, 2010). However, this is not without its problems, as is emphasised by Robert Boyer (2005b), or Sébastien Lechevalier (2007b, 2012a). Indeed, not only did this way of putting it constitute an oversimplification in the 1980s, but it is in fact more and more false today given the increasing diversity of Japanese firms. This should lead us to re-think how to define the forms of capitalism. It should not be restricted entirely to how firms are organised, but rather it should also include the ways firms are coordinated at the macro and meso levels, as well as taking into account the question of the social compromise (Chapters 3 and 4). In this chapter we shall concentrate on the evolution of the model of the
Japanese firm. First of all, we shall present the classic model, that of the 1980s. This should not be seen as a ‘traditional’ model, as this mode of organisation emerged between the two wars, was consolidated during the war and under the American Occupation, before evolving during the high growth period (1950s-60s) and the period of adjustments to various shocks (Nixon shock, oil shocks, endaka, etc.) in the 1970s and 1980s (Okazaki & OkunoFujiwara, 1999; Gordon, 1988, 1998). Second, we shall show that the principal transformation between the 1980s and today is not the disappearance of the classic Japanese model of the firm, but the growing heterogeneity of organisational forms and the ways in which they operate. Next, we shall try to list the different models of the Japanese firm today and analyse their respective characteristics. Finally, we shall attempt to evaluate the role of the neo-liberal transition in this transformation. In summary, the paradox revealed in this chapter is the following: whereas
certain of the initiators of neo-liberal policies aimed to make the Japanese model converge towards the Anglo-Saxon model of the firm, the launch of these policies has led to growing diversity in Japanese firms, and the Anglo-Saxon model can be found at best only among a minority of firms.
