IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v59y2006i2p374-395.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Voice’ and ‘exit’ in Japanese firms during the Second World War: Sanpo revisited

Author

Listed:
  • TETSUJI OKAZAKI

Abstract

During the Second World War, the Japanese government and private sector searched for and implemented new mechanisms for coordination and motivation. One of these was sangyo hokokukai (sanpo). The Sanpo unit was basically an organization of the employer and employees of each firm, which held meetings to moderate labour relations. As a result of government policy to promote sanpo units, around 70 per cent of the total workers in Japan were organized into sanpo units in the early 1940s. As the members of trades unions and the workers of the companies that had factory committees were only 7 per cent and 5 per cent of the total workers in 1936 respectively, sanpo was the first large‐scale mechanism for Japanese employees to have a voice. This article examines the role of sanpo, using prefecture‐level and firm‐level data, based on a framework integrating the ‘voice view’ of unionism and transaction cost economics. It was found that sanpo reduced the participation rate in labour disputes, and enhanced labour productivity at least for some of the time.

Suggested Citation

  • Tetsuji Okazaki, 2006. "‘Voice’ and ‘exit’ in Japanese firms during the Second World War: Sanpo revisited," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(2), pages 374-395, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:59:y:2006:i:2:p:374-395
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2006.00337.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2006.00337.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2006.00337.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2008. "Property and Risk: Revisit to Peasant Economy in Modern Japan," 2017 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2017, Mobile, Alabama 252825, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:59:y:2006:i:2:p:374-395. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.