Transformation of traditional HRM practices in Japanese manufacturers in globalizing economy

While the drastic changes in the business environment surrounding Japanese companies gave them huge pressures to change their management systems and practices, the magnitudes of those changes are different from respective practices. The purpose of this research is to examine why and how the traditional Human Resource Managment (HRM) practices of large Japanese manufacturers stayed unchanged or have been changing in the past two decades. For this research a question is taken theoretical and case-study approach. Based on institutional theories, we present hypothetical propositions to explain why some practices change and others do not. The related cases are provided to enhance the robustness of the propositions’ explanatory power with findings that inertia of HRM practices in large Japanese manufacturers is likely to stem from strong pressures of normative and cultural-cognitive elements inside the organizations; and transformation of HRM practices in those manufacturers tends to arise from increasing pressures from political, functional and social factors in the model of deinstitutionalization. The findings in this research imply that policy makers should make strategies to promote new technologies in Japanese industries and enhance the language ability of Japanese workers to change the traditional HR practice to more suitable ones in the globalizing economy.