The case for stock reduction in manufacturing has been argued by engineers who emphasise the productive benefits. Western management accounting does not provide an adequate indication of the costs of holding stock. This article constructs a framework for identifying and measuring the financial...

After four consecutive years′ trade surplus, Korea′s climbing foreign trade deficit in 1990 is a clear signal that the nation should attempt to improve the performance of its manufacturing industry. However, there has not been much study on how manufacturing management is conducted in Korea...

During an extended period of economic recession for most of the 1990s, broad and striking changes have been made to the Japanese employment system. How fundamental or reversible they are is harder to evaluate. If the economic recovery prevails, a considerable stabilization of Japanese human...

The Japanese economy, facing a severe labour shortage, may need to seek a fuller utilisation of women. Circumstantial evidence about the labour shortage is described, and Japanese wage and income tax systems are analysed, from which it is found that they are institutionally working against women...

Argues that the high job mobility observed most prominently among workers in Japanese firms is consistent with the behaviour of risk‐averse individuals when neither private nor public income insurance is widely available to displaced workers. Laissez faire is suboptimal and involves higher job...

Examines the human resource (HR) policies adopted by two Japanese retail stores in Hong Kong. Finds that the two Japanese retail stores employ different HR policies in terms of recruitment and selection, remuneration and welfare, and training and development for different groups of employees...