Japanese Corporate Transition in Time and Space Book

List of Plates and Tables xi

Note on Transliteration and Translation xiii

Acknowledgments xv

1 Knowledge and Competing Discourses in Organizations 1

JCars in Context 1

Models of the Japanese Workplace 6

The Workplace as Community 8

Discursive Formation of Community 9

Hierarchy in Action 12

Organization of This Book 13

2 Fieldwork and Methodology 17

Bodies and Knowledge 17

Tsūkin (Commute) 20

Kaisha (Company) 22

Why Study JCars? 24

Multiple Positions and Feelings 25

Friendships, Worldview, Intersubjectivity, and Ethnography 29

Techniques of Data Collection 37

Inside the Office 38

Outside the Office 42

Official Contexts 42

Casual Contexts 42

Email in Research Settings: As Method and Topic 43

Summary of Methodology 44

3 Gender Segregation and the Japanese Labor Market: Equal Employment Opportunity Law 47

Office Workers 48

Salary Man and Office Lady 48

Gender Segregation in the Japanese Labor Market 50

Management Reforms in the 1970s: Utilizing Women's Power 53

Women's Ratio of Participation in Various Professions, 1990-2005 54

The Status of Female Workers 55

Exclusion from Employment in Large Companies 55

Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) 58

Introduction of the Career Tracking System, EEOL (1986) 59

EEOL Enacted (1997), Enforced (1999) 62

The Company, Society, and EEOL 64

Economic Downturn and Restructuring in the 1990s 66

Social and Structural Effects 66

Restructuring in the Manufacturing Sector 68

Implications of Restructuring 69

Women's Status Reconsidered 70

4 Firm Entry, Tracking System, Careers, Status Negotiation 75

Recruitment 75

The Annual Business Plan and the RecruitmentProject 75

Firm Entry via Personal Connections: Quality of the Worker 76

Recruiting Female Junior College Graduates 79

Allocation to Departments: Suitability 80

Recruiting Female University Graduates via Career Track 81

Recruiting Men 81

Disabled Workers 83

The Tracking System 88

Experience of Positions in Clerical and Career Tracks 88

Restructuring: Job Equality between Clerical and Career Track-Occupational Role 92

Converting to the Career Track 95

EEOL's Effects on Women's Long-Term Career Aspirations 98

Women and Men's Talk of Male Careers 100

Personality and Appearance of New Recruits 103

Female Office Workers, Meaning, and Discourses 110

Glamor 110

Independence 111

Career Woman or Office Worker 112

Summary: Discourses of Status 113

5 Linguistic Spaces of Vertical and Horizontal Organization 117

JCar's Social Structure = Nakane's Model 117

Vertical Relations: The Tutor System 120

Job Supervision 120

Sister Tutelage 122

Dōki Groups 132

Summary: Ideals and Experience, Uniting Theory and Practice 138

6 Temporal Dimensions of Symbolic Community 145

The Urban Commute 145

Time, Work, Life Course 146

Daily Regulation of Time 147

Overtime: Cultural Meanings 148

Loyalty of Junior Workers 150

Western-Style Section Head 153

Self-Maintenance and Embodiment 153

Gift-Giving 156

O-miyage 156

O-Chūgen and O-seibo 158

Senpai no Ogori 159

Organized Events 160

Summary: Fostering a JCars Community 161

7 Spatial Practices and Hierarchy 165

Characteristics of Hierarchy 166

Rigid and Flexible Hierarchy 169

Relocation 169

Global Hierarchy 170

Office Parties 171

Drink and Interaction 172

Role of Hierarchy in the Open Plan Office 172

Efficiency 172

Surveillance 173

Transparency 174

Gendered Spaces: Tea Room and Changing Room 176

Surveillance-Slipping Away 176

Undecided Space 179

Tea Making 179

Cleaning Duties 180

Exclusivity: By Gender 181

Exclusivity: Power among Women 181

Smokers 183

Refusal to Clean Desks and Ashtrays 184

Summary: Hierarchy and the Different Production of Meanings 185

8 Spatial Practices of Mēru and Bulletin Board 189

Installation of IT Systems 191

Practice of Economic Diversion 194

Mēru: A Web of Activity 197

Romance 198

Friendships 201

Public and Private in Spatial Practice 203

Demarcation through Embodied Practices 203

Practices of Detection: Mēru Monitoring 205

Co-Workers as "Other" 207

Seken 207

Mēru and Seken 211

The Disorderly Community 211

Intermission 215

Conclusions 217

Closing 217

Impossibility of Closure 225

Appendix 231

Appendix 1 Brief Timeline of Multisited Fieldwork 231

Appendix 2 A Graph to Show the Labor Force Participation Rate of Women by Country and Age Group, 1997 232

Appendix 3 Uranai, Fortune Telling Based on One's Life Course 233

Glossary 235

Notes 239

Selected Bibliography 257

Index 281