Human Resource Management in Japanese Companies Expanding into Developing Countries - A Case Study of Hunan Heiwado Employing Local Staff in order to Realize Their Business Model and Creating a Competitive Advantage -

This paper investigates how a corporation effectively used local staff in order to realize its business model in its expansion into an emerging market and to obtain a competitive advantage. The case study is of Heiwado, a retailer with the majority of its stores in Shiga prefecture, and its human resource management after expanding into Hunan province, China, in the late 1990s. This paper first explains Heiwado's business model and considers how they dealt with human resource management in order to realize this business model, focusing on training of local staff and evaluation and remuneration in order to increase staff motivation. There were two findings from the case study investigation. First, Heiwado became involved in human resource training, investing money in training to encourage changes in work values, previously not employed in the area, in order to ensure that local staff fulfilled staff requirements necessary to generative its core business model value. Second, Heiwado flexibly applied evaluation and remuneration practices, taking into account their experience in Japan and traits of the local staff.