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Global Business: Japanese Work Culture

Japanese Work Culture

30/06/2012

BBC World Service - Global Business, Japanese Work Culture

Peter Day reports on Japanese work culture.

This week Global Business is back in Japan. Peter Day reports from this island nation about the very traditional work culture, and its effects on modern-day Japanese economy.

Japan has a very strict corporate culture which has been in place since World War II.  

In the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese companies were world-beaters, manufacturing processes like 'just in time' were revered everywhere and Sony and Nissan became household names.  

The world has moved on but Japanese corporate culture has not.  

Deference to your boss and no promotion until you are in your 40s is still the way business operates in government and big corporations. 

Risk is tantamount to failure and so entrepreneurship is virtually non-existent.  

Peter Day looks at how some people are trying to encourage change in corporate and working life.

(Image: A crowd of Japanese businessmen. Credit: AFP Photo / Yoshikazu Tsuno)

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