A comparative study between the Japanese principles of personnel management and the actual practice in a Philippine-based Japanese company

• Main Authors: Paulino, Shirley May J., Vistan, Rafael A., Ylagan, Ma. Bernadette F.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1994
• Subjects: Personnel management > Japan; Corporations; Japanese > Philippines > Management; Comparative management; International and Area Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_honors/68
• Institution: De La Salle University

The unique style of Japanese personnel management has been one of the factors that have aided Japan in its successful pursuit of economic growth and advancement. In view of this, the researchers aimed to make a study of these personnel management principles and to know if these principles are as effective in practice. The researchers believed that data derived from secondary sources would not be sufficient for the purpose of the study thus, the researchers decided to conduct a study of personnel management style of a Japanese company in the Philippines as a basis of comparison. In effect, the whole study is comparative in nature, which aimed to compare the principles of Japanese personnel management from a secondary source with that of Philippine-based company and whether there exist either a continuity or a disparity between the two. The principles from the secondary source were strictly based on a book by Shoji Shiba entitled The Japanese Way of Management . The basis of comparison would be the actual practice of Nissan Motor Philippines, Inc. which was done through interviews with the Director and former President of Nissan Motors Philippines, Mr. Vicente Mills and with Mr. Albert Zenarosa, a part-time faculty member of the Japanese Studies program of De La Salle University. The researchers focused the study on five aspects of Japanese personnel management namely: recruitment and hiring, training programs, job description, promotions and advancement, and lastly, duration of employment. The researchers discovered through their study that there is a general disparity, with certain exceptions where there are minor similarities. In terms of recruitment and hiring, both undergo annual recruitment and general hiring although in Nissan Philippines, they do not limit hires to fresh graduates. With regards to training programs, research showed that the Japanese training programs are formal and comprehensive while in Nissan, its more informal and of short duration only, unlike in Japan where trainings are said to last for the employee's entire duration in the company. Job description based on book of Shoji Shiba and the practice of Nissan are similarly vague. As for promotion and advancement, Japanese consider educational attainment along with a long-term evaluation as the main factors as opposed to Nissan Philippines' promotion policy which is short-term. The major disparity lies in the principle of duration of employment. In Japan, big companies who can afford to give daily allowance to their retirees, practice lifetime employment, in exchange for the employees' loyalty. On the other hand, Nissan Philippines finds it impossible to apply the same system for social and economic reasons. In view of all these findings, the researchers hoped that their study would broaden the awareness of business managers and entrepreneurs in the Philippines regarding the implementation of some Japanese personnel management principles in their business and to the national industry as a whole.