Introduction

Although Japan experienced a rapid economic expansion during the 20th century and the more than 70 years of its liberal democratic political system, it has a relatively small PR industry, which has been described as underdeveloped or even unrecognizable. This chapter presents three questions that the book aims to answer: How did Japanese public relations develop? What were the political, social, and economic conditions that supported or inhibited its development? Why didn’t it develop a large public relations industry despite rapid economic development? After providing the background for the research compiled in this book, this chapter provides a conceptual framework that signifies an important aspect of PR in Japan, pointing out the lack of discussion on the influence of management style on public relations and how the development of a distinctive management style, such as the practice of lifetime employment, relates to the development of a specific type of public relations, which the authors call “generalist PR.”