ABSTRACT
In 1958 the American industrial sociologist James Abegglen was the first Western observer to describe the post-war paradigm of the Japanese firm to the Western world in his book The Japanese Factory: Aspects of its Social Organization. He described the ‘critical difference’ between Japanese and American industrial organization as an implicit and non-contractual agreement between employer and employee to membership of the organization for the whole working life of the employee. The basis of this arrangement was ‘a system of shared obligation’ that took ‘the place of the economic basis of employment’ (Abegglen, 1958: 17). He described the agreement thus.
At whatever level of organization in the Japanese factory, the worker commits himself on entrance to the company for the remainder of his working career. The company will not discharge him even temporarily except in the most extreme circumstances. He will not quit the company for industrial employment elsewhere. He is a member of the company in a way resembling that in which persons are members of families, fraternal organizations, and other intimate and personal groups in the United States.
(ibid.: 11)