Книги

All firms wrestle with restructuring, involving consolidation of mergers and acquisitions on the one hand, and fragmentation through outsourcing and spin-offs on the other. Through an in-depth investigation into the organizational strategies of Japanese corporate management and union leaders in Japan, Mari Sako explores the issue of 'organizational boundaries' that arises from such restructuring. Examining the strategy and structure of both businesses and trade unions, the book draws upon empirical evidence drawn from interviews conducted at Toyota and Matsushita and their respective unions. It examines their respective strategies in coping with organizational boundaries against the backdrop of changing labour markets, and, in the process, challenges widely held notions about Japanese corporate and union structures. Mari Sako goes on to explore the implications of these relationships in other advanced industrial countries for corporate restructuring, jobs, and labour market flexibility.

Ronald Dore’s enquiring mind, rigorous reasoning and comparative methodology have greatly enhanced our understanding of Japan. His insights from Japan have been deployed to generate fresh perspectives on Britain and other industrialized and developing countries. This careful selection of writings reflects his underlying concern with what light the study of Japan sheds on theoretical generalizations about how societies evolve and how economies work. Social Evolution, Economic Development and Culture brings together Ronald Dore’s key writings for the first time, making his work accessible across a wide range of social science disciplines. It produces a distinctive perspective with four interlinking themes – technology-driven social evolution, late development, culture and polemics. These are highly topical in the current context of rapid technological innovation and socio-economic change, globalization and accompanying policy choices. The book provides a rich empirical and conceptual source for those interested in technology, socio-economic evolution and culture, and the ways in which they interact. Researchers, teachers and students in the fields of evolutionary economics, economic development, comparative education, institutional economics, political economy and economic and classical sociology (as well as Japanese studies) will find this volume invaluable reading.

The Golden Age of postwar capitalism has been eclipsed, and with it seemingly also the possibility of harmonizing equality and welfare with efficiency and jobs. Most analyses believe that the emerging postindustrial society is overdetermined by massive, convergent forces, such as tertiarization, new technologies, or globalization, all conspiring to make welfare states unsustainable in the future. Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies takes a second, more sociological and more institutional, look at the driving forces of economic transformation. What, as a result, stands out is postindustrial diversity, not convergence. Macroscopic, global trends are undoubtedly powerful, yet their influence is easily rivalled by domestic institutional traditions, by the kind of welfare regime that, some generations ago, was put in place. It is, however, especially the family economy that hold the key as to what kind of postindustrial model will emerge, and to how evolving tradeoffs will be managed. Twentieth-century economic analysis depended on a set of sociological assumptions that, now, are invalid. Hence, to better grasp what drives today's economy, we must begin with its social foundations.

Countries are looking for ways to compete and increase their share of exports; this has led to the lowering of national borders and greater co-dependence. To many, this climate of globalization signals the end of the nation-state as an effective manager of national economic policy. In "States Against Markets" the contributors challenge this perceived threat to the nation-state. They examine the fundamental issues of competitiveness and market power. Some topics covered include a discussion of whether or not globalization is really a novel development, an assessment of the success of globalization as a means of convergence and uniformity across nations, an update on the Hayek vs. Keynes debate, an analysis of how all parties involved can maximize the benefits of globalization and an appraisal of the nation-state.

This is a book about Washington Consensus capitalism and the controversies its encroachment causes in Japan and Germany. Many people in both those countries share the assumptions dominant today in Britain and America-that managers should be intent solely on creating shareholder value and that shareholders' financial logic alone should determine who buys what company on the stock exchange. That way efficiency (and hence global welfare) will be maximized. The Japanese and German advocates of full-bloodied market capitalism are not having it all their own way, however. In both countries there are articulate defenders of what they consider to be a better way of life, informed by a more human, more social-solidary, set of values. Dore traces the fascinating debates which ensue on corporate governance, on worker rights, on supplier relations, on cartels and anti-trust, on pensions and welfare. He also analyses actual changes in economic behaviour-an essential means of sorting out a lot of the muddle and double-talk not just in the internal debates themselves, but even more in the foreign reporting of them. These accounts of the battle for the national soul in Japan and Germany constitute one of the finest contributions to the 'diversity of capitalism' debate. Dore's account should be read by anyone who is interested to know whether, for all the talk of globalization, that diversity is going to survive.