People And Productivity In Japan

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of productivity analysis at the corporate level. It begins with productivity measurement and evaluation in the workplace where the main focus is on unit input requirement. The theory of worker productivity and its management is discussed intensively. Secondly, the intermediate stage of aggregation of activities at corporate level is given in terms of total cost rentability and productivity nexus. Using this approach the total efficiency of corporate activity is evaluated and compared with productivity performance both in Japan and worldwide, as well as with the average performance of the industry in which the firm is involved. Thirdly, the final concept of corporate productivity: added value productivity is examined. Added value is the total fruit of corporate activities and the fund to be distributed among its members. The total structure of added value, which is not quite so simple as many textbooks have led to believe, is analysed in detail and applied to the corporate productivity management scheme. Finally, white-collar productivity, one of the most topical areas in productivity studies today is also examined in detail.

Emerging from the ruins of the Second World War, the Japanese economy has grown at double-digit rate throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s, and, when the oil crisis of the 1970s slowed growth throughout the industrialized world, Japanese growth throughout the industrialized world, Japanese growth rates remained relatively strong. There have been many attempts by scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explain this remarkable history, but for economists interested in the quantitative analysis of economic growth and the principal question addressed is how Japan was able to grow so rapidly. The contributors focus their efforts on the accurate measurement and comparison of Japanese and U.S. economic growth. Assuming that any sustained increase in real GNP must be due either to an increase in the quantity of capital and labor used in production or to the more efficient use of these inputs, the authors analyze the individual contributions of various factors and their importance in the process of output growth. These essays extend the methodology of growth analysis and offer many insights into the factors leading to the superior performance of the Japanese economy. They demonstrate that growth is a complex process and no single factor can explain the Japanese 'miracle.'

This book addresses the rising productivity gap between the global frontier and other firms, and identifies a number of structural impediments constraining business start-ups, knowledge diffusion and resource allocation (such as barriers to up-scaling and relatively high rates of skill mismatch).