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Spurious Loyalty of Japanese
Workers:
Naotaka Watanabe Keio University, Japan
Koji Takahashi Mie University, Japan
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Introduction It has long been believed (or it has been recognized as a proposition) that Japanese employees are deeply committed to, involved in, attached to, and strongly loyal to, the organizations they join From 1970's until 1980's, "Japanese Style of Management," including human resource management principle and policies have gathered comprehensive popularity both of management practitioners and researchers and they tried to substantiate the proposition above The characteristics of Japanese style of management could be summarized as follows:
Recently, however, as a continuing recession in Japanese economy, most of which once were praised as splendid Japanese management principle and policies are rather highlighted their faults. Although criticism became emphasized on Japanese style of management, the proposition on Japanese employees' high level of commitment to organization has been appealing to researchers and practitioners. There exists a myth among researchers and practitioners that employees working for Japanese companies are very loyal to their company and do not easily quit it. That is why, the company provides a lot of care and protection with the employees through above mentioned Japanese style of HRM This myth, however, has been almost denied by previously conducted cross-cultural studies on organizational commitment (e.g., Lincoln & Kalleberg, 1990). The results of previous studies showed that Japanese workers' organizational commitment is not so high as we guess, rather lower, compared with the workers who are working in various industrialized countries. This result was not acceptable for the researchers and practitioners who had supported the effectiveness of Japanese style of management. As the result, a number of controversies has raised why the common sense (proposition or myth) was not supported by empirical studies (e.g., Watanabe, 1997). Through the controversies, one plausible explanation was presented. It is that definition and content of organizational commitment with which we have dealt are too ambiguous and too straightforward. The argument has been addressed that previous studies only dealt with one facet of organizational commitment, particularly emotion-based commitment and neglected the other components of organizational commitment. Meyer and Allen (1997) posits that there are three facets in commitment to organizations in nature, namely affective, continuance, and normative commitment. Affective commitment refers to the employee's emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a strong selective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so. Continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the costs associated with leaving the organization. Employees whose primary link to the organization is based on continuance commitment remain because they need to do so. Finally, normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment. Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization. Viewed from this theoretical framework, previous studies only dealt with affective commitment, which is primarily measured by Porter et al.'s (1974) Organizational Commitment questionnaire (OCQ). OCQ has been well known as the scale for measuring employees, emotional attachment to the organization. It is, however, inadequate to measure the other components of commitment: continuance and normative. As mentioned above, it is very clear that Japanese style of HRM could function as a social system, which strongly promote the employees' continuance commitments rather than affective one. Under such HRM system, it is very costly for workers to quit the organization they have worked for, since they have almost no alternative organization to employ them in better, at least, the same conditions. So, they need to remain in the company even if they do no longer have any emotional attachment to the organization. Under these circumstances, Japanese workers' overall organizational commitment is developed in an unusually skewed way, which means only the continuance component is exaggerated and the growth of the other components cannot be highly developed. Organization tends to guess that development of continuance commitment goes with the development of affective and normative ones. The notion shared in the organization that "they lemployees] must have emotional attachment to the company and have ethically correct ideas, because they do not quit the company" is prevailed and accepted by top management As a result, the employees have to pretend as if they had certain level of affective and normative commitment to the organization as high as they did on continuance commitment in order to prevent the top management to uncover their "spurious loyalty" to the company. It is therefore valuable to scrutinize these complex intra-psychic situations surrounding Japanese workers from the psychoanalytic framework.
The Case of Mr. A [2]
Background Information Mr. A had worked for Pecan-Water Corporation (hereafter referred to as Pecan-Water), a famous and one of the world-biggest tire manufacturing company, for as long as 40 years since he graduated from high school in 1959, at the age of 18. His father and elder brother(s) also worked for affiliated companies of Pecan-Water (Shukan Bunshun, May 6, 1999). Consistent with typical workers' career pattern in this time, Mr. A had kept on working for Pecan-Water until November 1992, at last as manager of Purchasing Division of its Yokohama Factory. Later, he accepted the assignment to transfer to Pecan-Water Sports Corporation (hereafter referred to as Pecan-Water Sports), a subsidiary according to business domain change of Pecan-Water. Mr. A's past coworkers commented that his attitude towards work had always been serious (Mainichi Shimbun, April 4, 1999).
As a member of a subsidiary company, Mr. A maintained serious attitude at work and served well. Unti1 1997, he had promoted to joint manager of Employee Affairs Division [3] and Purchasing Division, but was demoted to chief examiner of Employee Affairs Division in 1997 and afterwards to chief examiner of Control Division (no subordinate division) [4] in February 1999. Thus, we can say that he was forced to "go to window-side'' [5] with certain wage reduction This downgrading was based on company-wide policy of "age-based retirement from position," which means that each grade is equipped with "retirement age'' limit for occupants (for example, if CEO position's retirement age is doomed as 65, CEO must resign just before becoming 65). Public Relations Division of Pecan-Water Company announced that the company has adopted downsizing and restructuring policies since 1994. It employed 16,059 employees In late 1993, but the number of employees decreased into 12,597 in late 1998 (3,462 decreased -21.6%).[6] Mr. A might have expected this kind of retaliatory assignment by the company. The company offered him "early retirement'' with premium retirement wage several times in fall 1998, but he seemed to hesitate to accept the offer. It seems that he could not tolerate, however, with the final assignment to the "me-and-nobody" division, so that he reluctantly accepted the retirement over and was to quit his job in March 31, 1999. Mr. A lived with his wife and their two daughters already got married and had their own family at the incident period.
The Incident on March 23, 1999 In the morning of March 23, on his way from home to work, Mr. A bought two yanagi-ba bocho (originally, ``thin-blade knife [as pliant as willows]": Japanese kitchen knife with very thin and long blade), whose edge-length was 35 cm (approximately 13.8 inches). He seemed to mail or ask someone to mail a series, of his "protest letters" to the editors of major Japanese newspapers, and these letters reached them a few days later. Around 9:20 a.m. on that day, Mr. P. the president of Pecan-Water, arrived at his office in the Headquarter Building of Pecan-Water, Tokyo, as always. Mr. P immediately realized that Mr. A suddenly entered into the president office without appointment. He was surprised and asked, "What's wrong with you, Mr. A?" Mr. A answered' "Pecan-Water Sports urged me to quit, against my will. You [sic] are abusing early retirement policy.' I strongly protest it." The president immediately called up one of the executive directors and told him to join the meeting with Mr. A. When an executive director arrived at the president office, he witnessed that the president was sitting at his desk and Mr. A was standing in front of it, without losing temper. The president and the executive director persuaded Mr. A, saying "No, Pecan-Water Sports didn't urge you to retire early. It completely depends on your own decision whether or not you accept the early retirement offer." Mr. A responded, ``I can't believe it. I was explained that the same working condition including compensation [as in Pecan-Water] was guaranteed in Pecan-Water Sports, so I accepted the offer to quit this company and move to the subsidiary. But I have been paid less. It's a deceitful promise, isn't it? I'd like to ask you to equalize working condition between headquarter [Pecan-Water] and its subsidiaries…" Then Mr. A gradually got excited, put off his clothes except his underwear, whipped out two yanagi-ba kitchen knives, and started swinging them around. Mr. A said to the president, "I shah execute Harakiri ... do please follow me with your death." Soon other employees noticed the tense situation and rushed into the president office, whom Mr. A. ~ requested to give him telephone numbers of major mass media and send all the employees of Pecan-Water his message via e-mail. Informed of the telephone number, Mr. A called up and said, "I'm now in the president office of Pecan-Water with the president. I'm thinking of kiting myself and asking him to follow me. Would you please [sic] read my protest letters soon delivered to you, if you would like to know why." Around 10:00 a.m., policemen arrived at the president office and initiated persuading Mr. A to give up Harakiri suicide attempt, together with the president and the general manager. Around 11:25 am, Mr. A suddenly stabbed himself in the side and cut it horizontally using one of yanagi-ba bocho: a Harakiri attempt in legitimate way. [7] He then shouted repeatedly, "No need to prolong any life! Never transfuse blood!" At once Mr. A was conveyed to hospital by ambulance car, in which he kept on shouting in like manner. Mr. A's Harakiri suicide finally succeeded at 2:45 p.m. in the hospita1- thus he was deceased. In his bag, there found what he called `'the protest letters" up to 4,200 characters dated on "one day in February [sic]," in a printed-out paper and floppy disk, and ``Tanka-poet on deathbed" (called "Jisei-no-Ku" in Japanese) of his own made. The latter is a tradition of Japanese samurai on his deathbed, which says farewell to life. Major comments on Mr. A's confinement and suicide by Harakiri were basically compassionate. A famous Japanese Economics commentator commented, "…[Mr. A's] [B]ehaviors were based on unavoidable reasons. His claim was sound. We shouldn't conclude this case as 'extraordinary' one'' (Asahi Shimbun, Mar. 26, 1999). Public Relations Department of Pecan-Water commented, "We are bewildered by Mr. A's protest behaviors, because we are quite certain that our early retirement policy has been applied equally to all employees. Mr. A claimed that his pay was reduced, but this was because he was demoted and certain part of his pay [bonus] was based on performance. Pecan-Water has never urged employees to accept the early retirement offer, so employees can accept it voluntarily... " (Asahi Shimbun, Mar. 26, 1999). Mr. J. a secretary-general of Pecan-Water Labor Union, commented' "We don't receive his [Protest] letter. We regret the incident, but we, as Union, won't take the incident seriously..." Pecan-Water announced in April that it would not take any disciplinary action to Mr. A, including disciplinary dismissal, thus it would pay him 33,000,000 yen (approximately, equal to $275,000 or £165,000; $=120yen, £1=200yen) as retirement wage with premium, as promised previous to the incident.
Analysis from Kleinian Perspective [8] Mr. A's overall behavior, including the way he chose to commit suicide (Harakiri), and his last messages made Japanese people surprised and sympathetic. We also felt, however, that this kind of incidents could occur in Japan and were reminded of similar incidents in the past. Two significant questions arose: "why did he take such far extreme and irrational behaviors' including suicide by Harakiri only to demur company's downsizing policies and failing to keep up fairness and justice? Is that a symbolic behavior of something?" and "Why was not he, a typical highly-committed Japanese employee, able to obey downsizing policy (it must be required for the company to which he highly committed, to last)?" Here we briefly analyze the case of Mr. A from Kleinian perspective.
Organization as Object: In Search of Substitutive Mother Reviewing the case of Mr. A, we instantaneously noticed that Mr. A's object was Pecan-Water, where he spent most of his career since he gained his first job. His overall actions focused on solving dissatisfaction relevant to company policies and treatment of Pecan-Water Sports, to which he was moved. Nevertheless, he went to the president office of Pecan-Water where he had once worked, not of Pecan-Water Sports for which he was working, to protest Mr. A may feel that he was raised by Pecan-Water, as most typical Japanese highly committed workers do: that is, Pecan-Water has been a substitutive Mother for Mr. A for almost 40 years, as pointed out in group psychotherapy and psychoanalysis literatures (e.g., Ruiz, 1972; Schelidlinger, 1974, Slavson, 1964). [9] The organization as Mother had taken care of Mr. A from 1959 (the year he was 'born in vocational life") until l992 (the year he was "abandoned'' and "sent away to the home of foster Mother"). Besides, these literatures posit leaders as Father (Ruiz, 1972; Schelidlinger, 1974, Slavson, 1964). Mr. A's behavior can be interpreted as "visiting former Father, persuading him to demolish 'early retirement policy,' and trying to commit suicide together." It is striking that Mr. A did not visit his new and current Father, the president of Pecan-Water Sports, but his old and former Father the president of Pecan-Water. As a well-socialized manager of a Japanese company, Mr. A must have known the importance of nemawashi (groundwork laid unobtrusively in advance). Hence, he may have visited the current employer at first if he acted rationally. This fact portrays that Pecan-Water has been Mr. A's object since his early career. Recall that the object was Pecan-Water for which he formerly worked, not Pecan-Water Sports in which he believed he was treated badly. His trial to see the president of Pecan-Water was just to seek substitutive Mother who had been lost and to await recovery of good object relations.
Splitting, Introjection, and Projective Identification with Pecan-Water Mr. A had experienced, in his interna1 world, Pecan-Water as a good object until he was assigned to move from Pecan-Water to a subsidiary (new foster Mother for Mr. A). Through identification with the good object, Mr. might have developed a sense of well-being, as implied in his adapted workstyle and obedience to Pecan-Water. We need to discuss substantial impact of Pecan-Water's assigning Mr. A to the subsidiary. For him, this was a kind of "Abundance" by his Mother object (substitutive Mother). He, as a matured and adapted person, seemed to have been in the "Depressive Position (D)" (see Segal 1973, for detail) until the assignment; Pecan-Water had been a good whole-object for him, protecting him from fears both from inside and outside. Mr. A had thought that the object as substitutive Mother did never betray him. It may be more than what we can expect how much he was muddled, when Mr. A recognized the Mothers breach of faith, because it seemed to give him a primitive and unconscious fantasy [10] that the object would attack and do him harm. At that point, Mr. A was made to be in the "Paranoid-Schizoid Position (PS)", (See Matsuki, 1996, and Segal, 1973, for description). He thus formed dreadful fear and sensed that Pecan-Water (his object as substitutive Mother) was no longer integrated: that is, Mr. A's object was made fragmented into good (supportive) and bad (persecutory) part-objects. Now that Pecan-Water could not help Mr. A because of her unilateral abortion of bone fide annulment unofficially securing long-term employment, he was forced to re-evaluate the object relations between him and the substitutive Mother. It seems that Mr. A could not even devaluate the substitutive Mother, and instead, he seemed to deny persecutory, bad part-objects thus preserve good ones. This might be rare case if one is in PS. This may be because Mr. A was well adapted to Pecan-Water and believed in (or fantasized) the promise to commonly retain working conditions between two companies. Not far persecutory was the substitutive Mother for Mr. A at that moment. Rather, she was indifference to him. Mr. A had been informed that the working conditions including compensation would be preserved if he moved to Pecan-Water Sports (his new foster Mother). If he felt it was, Mr. A's fragmented part-objects would be re-integrated, the new foster Mother became a new substitute, and his former Mother object (Pecan-Water) could be abandoned. The treatment for Mr. A at Pecan-Water Sports was, however, against the promise by which he had been prevented from being in PS. He searched for objects to project his anger and persecutory anxiety into. It should be emphasized that Mr. A did not fantasize that his new foster parents were objects into which he projected his primitive affection, rather, his pre-parents (Pecan-Water itself and top management there) had kept their status constantly and unchangingly. Persecutory anxiety and anger may have been projected into Pecan-Water itself and the top management, but soon he seemed to deny substantial anger to the company as Mother and idealized her as he had done previously, and more willingly he projected his excessive anger into the top management there. Then Mr. A formed projective identification with his fragmented pre-Father objects, being afraid that they would attack him more than ever. Mr. A fantasized that the good, caring Mother object was "abused" by the father, which totally augmented Mr. A's anger. Here Pecan-Water itself did not serve him so well because, in the ordinary form of organization, managers (including top management as Father objects) would represent and speak for the organization they join. Organization members had to understand how well the organization do good to them through evaluating policies realized by acts of management. Mr. A, having fantasized that top management as Father object abused Mother (Pecan-Water), might just as well project his anger and Thanatos (death instinct: cf. Hinshelwood, 1994; Segal, 1973) into Father object and be very much afraid of being severely revenged in return by him as projective identification Mr. A's reaction to his outplacement to madogiwa (out of career-track) was complaint to decrease of wages, not of devaluation of his self-esteem, which makes us recognize that he was defected to employ introjective identification (one of the other schizoid mechanisms) with good objects. Mr. A's excessive aggression was based on his oral fantasies of biting up and gobbling up good Mother objects, and therefore his aggression to Father objects increased because it was hindered. Pecan-Water served Mr. A as a failed container, [11] and he received no verbal, readable feedback on his anger and aggressiveness from the Mother object.
Close Look at Oedipal Situation around Organization as Mother: Persecutory Guilt and Depressive Anxiety We must be careful of the fact that only Mr. A was not treated badly in downsizing policies of Pecan-Water with its subsidiaries. So, why did Mr. A commit such an excessive crime as confinement and urged the president to commit suicide with him? We suppose that understanding the oedipal situation among Mr. A, Pecan-Water, and its top management represented by Mr. P provides another insight to answer this question. From the view of Business Administration Theory, each manager is distributed to a certain amount of authority, based on his/her hierarchical position. By using the distributed authority, the managers manage subordinates and focus overall efforts to make organizational goals come true. Thus, even the top management (CEO and the president) must obey the organization, for they are equipped with their authority by the organization itself: in a word, "Father-subordinates-to-Mother" situation. It is logical to assume that Mr. A, well-adjusted manager to Pecan-Water, had learned the trick during his early career. The tragedy of Mr. A is mainly based on his fantasy in which he identified Pecan-Water with ideal Mother objects, and its top management with Father objects as "subordinate abuser" of Mother objects. Mr. A might fantasize the situation in which bad Father objects abused good Mother's authority and devaluated and destroyed her. Because he idealized Mother objects, sudden assignment to move to its subsidiary and following downgrading and wage devaluation there was based on Father objects' intention, not ideal Mother objects'. Father betrayed Mother and children, and Mother was possessed no voice to echo, no action to protest, and no way to clarify Father's abuse and betrayal. As Mr. A's wish to slay Father objects increased, his afraid of being persecuted by bad Father objects seemed to elevate correspondingly. If Mr. A could not tolerate the excessive fear of being persecuted in this oedipal situation, he would blame himself by sensing. "I am to blame." and tried to be free from persecutory anxiety. This process is called "persecutory guilt" in PS. Whereas in this process, if he could not tolerate the anxiety either, he might also blame himself by perceiving, "I am to blame for my having been greedy and lack of consideration for Father, I imagined that I could extinguish Father and monopolize Mother." This process is called "depressive anxiety" in D. Which position he was in became unstable, influenced by conflict between excessive aggression (slaying Father) and extreme guilt or anxiety (as much as to slaying himsel0. What to do then for Mr. A was to recover perfect, good Mother objects by extinguishing bad Father objects, otherwise extinguishing Mr. A himself to preserve his ideal Mother objects. Finally, he chose both.
Harakiri as Attack to the Small Intestine. Attack to Internalized Bad Objects and Alttempt of Reparation for Good Objects Mr. A chose Harakiri method to slay himself. Non-psychoanalysis oriented psychologists and sociologists may consider that his symbolic behavior was a kind of "ritual" in order to identify his heroic protest with Japanese samuri's, on behalf of silent voice of downsizing victims We should be careful of the fact that Mr. A did not even try to kill the president of Pecan-Water, Mr.P, instead he requested the president to commit suicide together, presumably because of his depressive anxiety. In the process of forced negotiation with the president, Mr. A was calm at first and did not imply slaying himself and intention to ask the president to commit Harakiri. Rather, at the commencement, he logically protested unfair treatment on downgrading, salary devaluation, and his being "urged to voluntarily quit the company" on behalf of silent protests of managers who were treated likewise. Gradually, however, he began to lose his temper, got aggressive, appealed that he was going to execute Harakiri, and requested Mr. P to commit suicide in the sense manner. It seemed for Mr. A that Mr. P still abused Pecan-Water, but he never murdered Mr. P by himself. Why did he not do so? In the negotiation process, Mr. A also seemed to find out the reality of top management, subordinate to Pecan-Water. It may be a sense that he had also been one of the management and subordinates of Mr. P. It was another identification, which would lead to introjection, with bad, persecutory, and abusing objects. His career as a manager of Pecan-Water and Pecan-Water Sports was given another new meaning that he himself was also an abuser of Mother objects He seemed to get complicated to sense this fact, and immediately wish to extinguish his internalized bad Father objects and attack with himself as one of the abusers of good Mother objects. Sense of reparation for abusing good Mother objects might occur. Mr. A, with extremist sense of aggression and depressive anxiety, decided unconsciously to turn it towards himself thus he abandoned to urge Mr. P to commit suicide together Harakiri was the best method for him to slay himself because it enabled him to realize (1) his excessive aggression to internalized bad Father objects; (2) his reparation for good Mother objects which he had abused and exploited with oral greediness ("I ate up my mothers") by Harakiri attack to the small intestine (the organ of trophic absorption); and (3) his attempt to extinguish himself from the world of complicated internal objects. We could say that Mr. A's loyalty to Pecan-Water was spurious as it made him employ excessive behavior by psychic conflicts of good and bad objects. We would like to emphasize that the case of Mr. A is not specific to Japanese culture, which has the best method of suicide in this case (Harakiri). Mr. A's case can be replicated anywhere in the world in a similar manner. Only the protest letters left around, with a message appealing full, everlasting affection to Pecan-Water, Mr. A's good, caring Mother, which he had abused unconsciously and unintentionally. Pecan-Water and its top management were left alive, as if they would be every employee's good parents
References Abegglen, J. C. (1958). The Japanese factory: Aspect of its social organization Glencoe, IL; Free Press,. Allen, N. J., & Meyer, J. P. (1990). The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization Journa1 of Occupational Psychology; 63, 1-18. Czander, W. M. (1993). The psychodynamics of work and organizations; Theory and application. New Yolk: Guilford. Hinshelwood, R. D. (1994). Clinical Klein: From theory to practice. London: Free Books. Klein, M. (1975). The writings of Melanie Klein Volume 4; Narrative of a child analysis (Originally published in 1961 by Hogarth, London.) London. Hogarth. Lincoln, J. R. & Kalleberg, A. L. (1990). Culture, control, and commitment: A study of work organization and work attitudes in the United States and Japan. Cambridge, U K. Cambridge University Press. Matsuki, K (1996). Taisho-kankei-ron wo manabu`' Klein-ha seishin bunseki Nyumon [in Japanese]. [Learning Object Relations Theory: Introduction to Kleinian psychoanalysis. Tokyo: Iwasaki Gakujutsu Shuppan. Meyer, J. P. & Allen, N. Jo (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Meltzer, D. (1967). The psycho-analytic process. London: Heinemann. Porter, L. W., Steers, R.M., Mowday, R. T., & Boulian, P. V. (1974). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians. Journa1 of Applied Psychology; fig, 603-609. Ruiz, P. (1972). On the perception of the "Mother-Group' in T-Groups. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy 22, 488-49l. Scheidlinger, S. (1974). On the concept of the 'Mother Group'. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy 24, 417-428. Segal, H. (1973). Introduction to the work of Melanie Klein. London: Hogarth Slavson, S. R. (1964) A textbook in analytic group psychotherapy. New York: International Universities Press. Takahashi, K. (1997, May-Jun.). A tough day-one that lasts: Myths and facts of organizational entry in Japan. Paper Presented at 5th A. F. Jacobson Symposium in Communications (Chairperson: Hollwitz, J. C. Title: ``Workplace Socialization: Perspectives on Organizational Entry Training, and Exit"), Creighton University, Omaha, NE, U.S.A. Notes [1] A brief description of socialization tactics for company newcomers is presented in Takahashi (1997). [2] All names including companies' remain anonymous to preserve privacy of the parties in charge (although this case was broadcast in Japanese and CNN TV news programs). We must confess that this case was composed of an array of Japanese newspaper and magazine articles (Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Shaken Bunshun, etc.), so all the information we used for analysis was publicly available. Inconsistent with ordinary psychoanalytic cases, we could not collect; interview and interaction information related to life history, early experiences, recent dreams, current situation, fancily history, and so on, smith Mr. A. it was also impossible for us to contact his survived wife, daughters, and living relatives. Thus we have nothing new except article information. [3] Employee Affairs Division is a traditional Japanese one. In its broadest sense, it includes such functions as overall personnel/human resource management, industrial relations, public relations, and legal management. Recently, as business environment changes rapidly and more professional skills are required, this comprehensive, traditional division was divided into sub-components which better correspond to each function. [4] We should note the existence of "no subordinate division'' or "division without subordinate'' is not rare in Japanese companies (e.g., Division of Preserving Company History). No subordinate division has served as a concealment of seemingly "no-firing-employees, no-laying-offs," policy of past Japanese companies. Certainly this division has been used for storing hackneyed, cur-de sac old employees, just to keep them on the payroll. it is assumed that labor market liquidity in Japan was kept low because of this policy. [5] "Go to window side", is originally expressed "Mado-giwa he iku" in Japanese. As window side is a goal place for employees to sunbathe (bad for work, that is), this idiom is used as a metaphor, meaning that the person in charge is out of career-track in the company and has no more hope to get promoted. [6] Presumably we can find difference in objects of lay-off and early retirement policies between Japanese and typical U.S. companies. In Japanese companies, "anti-seniority rule" applies: thus, the older the employees are, the higher risk they take to be laid-off and requested to quit the companies. [7] Non Japanese people frequently misunderstand the meaning of Harakiri. It had been primarily used as a method of executing death penalty to maintain respects and dignity of the person in charge from 16th to lath century in Japan. Thus, when people in socially high class (e.g., samuri, politicians) committed a serious crime equivalent to capital punishment and arrested, the presiding judge assigned him Harakiri as a way of autonomously deciding when to commit suicide (though it must be very soon), instead of executing death penalty to him, not to defame respects and dignity of the criminal. The criminal assigned Harakiri ordinarily wore white cloths called "death clothes" (Shini-Shozoku) advised to write down "Tanka poet on deathbed" by Harakiri assistant (Kaishaku-Nin) also in socially high-class, and committed Harakiri. Readers must be careful of the fact that it is very much difficult for Harakiri executor to kill himself alone, therefore he needs to be beheaded by Harakiri assistant's sword attack from behind, because legitimate Harakiri technique requires the executers to cut through the relatively lower belly (the spot less main artery and more fat gather) horizontally, from left to right, cut vertically upward, then return Harakiri sword in front of him, and say "please" to his Harakiri assistant. In order to lead to death beautifully, Harakiri executor must cut his belly very deep, to the intestines depth. It should also be noted that if Harakiri assistant does really "behead" the executor, then he must commit Harakiri. This is because he devaluated the Harakiri executor's respects and dignity, so he had to be careful to "almost-behead," not completely behead the executor. [8]Basic notion, standpoint, theories, and clinical techniques of Kleinian and post Kleininan (e.g., Bion, Rosenfeld, Segal) are mostly omitted in this paper. Interested readers should refer to splendid introductory hooks on Kleinian and post-Kleinian approach by Segal (1973) and Hinshelwood (1994) and on comprehensive psychodynamics approach by Czander (1993). [9] These literatures originally deliberate "group as Mother," but here we expanded the controversies and applied this identification to organization. The rationale for this application is briefly discussed in Takahashi (1997). [10] Primitive nature of internal object is explained by Hinshelwood, (1994), as "Internal objects are, on the whole, one such primitive experience that is not consciously known about. They are the stuff of unconscious phantasy," (p.58). [11] Theory of container-contained'` was presented
by Dr. Wilfred R. Bion. It is an overall naming of the common basic
functioning in any dual-object relationship: e.g., infant-mother' male-female,
individual-society In the relationship of infant and mother. an infant
projects his/her unmanageable, non-verbalized affect (for example, persecutory
anxiety) into mother as a container. In the projection process, the
mother functions as a container, interprets the projected affect, into
endurable verbal form, and returns it back to the infant when appropriate,
which wholly decreases "nameless dread", the infant holds
and gives him/her a sense of being integrated, not fragmented ones.
It is possible when mother functions as a successful container, which
means that she can do the overall process - called "reverie",
by Bion - successfully. Notice that container-contained relationship
is not limited in the period of infantile, but in any moment it can
recur (see Segal, 1973, for explanation in detail), in which we suffer
from having persecutory anxiety and employ schizoid mechanism: e.g.,
splitting, projective identifications archaic idealization. It should
be pointed out that schizoid mechanism here is not necessarily related
to schizophrenia, rather, a consistent mechanism of executing psychic
works with external and internal objects, paired with corresponding
Depressive Position. |
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