Japanese Companies’ In-house Education in the Post-War Period: Educational Qualification and Personnel Management

Abstract

Abstruct During the late nineteenth century, the Japanese government established the bureaucrat appointment system based on educational qualification. Large private companies also adopted the personnel management system in which employees’ working conditions and career paths were determined by their educational qualifications. It was during this period that “school culture” started to become the dominant force in human resources development in Japan. On the other hand, it had also been widely understood that the traditional apprenticeship system maintained among craftsmen would not be able to produce workers capable of handling new technologies introduced from the West. The influence of “shop culture” on human resources development was only trivial in Japan. However, company managers did not place a high evaluation on Japanese education, and in particular university education’s ability to develop human resources. It was in-house education provided by private companies that complemented the lack of shop culture and the malfunction of school culture. In-house schools dealt with in this study were for high school graduates. This type of in-house schools was established by many large companies during the 1960s, producing second important core workers after those with university qualification.