Strategic human resource management: an agenda for Japanese companies in the 21st century

All firms globally are responding to a new and unprecedented set of business challenges. Securing competitive advantage and high performance is harder than it has ever been because the 21st century is a far more complicated and changeable global operating environment. New technologies are turning established industries upside down. New and non-traditional competitors from anywhere in the world are wrestling market share from established companies across all sectors and in domestic markets. Customer buying behaviour is reshaping expectations of variety, bundling and personalisation of the products and services they purchase. Sales cycles are getting ever shorter. All of these drivers of change, and more, are forcing leadership teams to urgently reevaluate where they wish to compete for market share, which strategies will yield best results and how to build organisations - and valuable human resources especially - capable of delivering those strategies.