Inside the Japanese Company [Hardcover]

Fiona Graham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415306701 | ISBN-13: 978-0415306706 | Publication Date: September 11, 2003

Graham explores the attitudes of Japanese employees towards their work, their company and on related issues. Based on extensive original research inside a Japanese insurance company (C-Life), which subsequently went bankrupt, the book shows that attitudes towards lifetime employment, company loyalty and the other characteristics of Japanese working life, which are often portrayed in stereotype form in the West, are in fact more complicated than is at first apparent.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Graham is clearly in a position to make highly accurate analyses of the nature of work , gender, leisure, training and career at C-Life.' - Organization

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (September 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415306701
• ISBN-13: 978-0415306706
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,037,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting stuff!, January 12, 2006

By 

A Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inside the Japanese Company (Hardcover)

Don't ask how I came to be reading this, as I know nothing about Japan, anthropology, or business studies. But I was hooked from the start. It's a fascinating trawl through life in a large Japanese company, which makes "Lad's Army" look like Butlins: if the employees survive the brutal totalitarian discipline of the training centre, the "voluntary" weekend working hours, and the "entirely non-compulsory" karaoke outings, they'll probably succumb to the imaginative bullying of their peers. Yet all is not well in the company as Japan's economy crumbles, and for the first time in a generation the samurai-like code of the white-collar worker is in serious jeopardy. All this could be fearsomely academic, but the author illustrates everything with anecdotes of her own experiences as an employee at "C-Life", and also with extensive quotes from the other employees - in which we see their habit of repeating the "company line" ("How I love this company! I love it even though they have asked me to "voluntarily retire!") breaking down in the face of their need to say what they *really* think. It's written in an interesting and lively style with a minimum of jargon. Although this book is doubtless of great interest to anthropologists, business students, and those interested in Japan, I think it should also be fascinating to practically anyone who likes real stories of ordinary people caught in a bizarre Kafka-esque world of bureaucracy, jargon, and perverted values - a world that is all the more poignant for its transience.

1.0 out of 5 stars Way to expensive!!, May 21, 2009

By 

D. Crudo - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside the Japanese Company (Kindle Edition)

I would be interested to read this book, but priced at $180 for 225 pages...is quite expensive! What is so special about this book to cost about $200 ?...