| Stable and harmonious labor relations can improve labor efficiency and reduce management cost,it is an important component of the core competitiveness of enterprises.In the environment of influencing and restricting the operation of labor relations system,the role of social cultural factors cannot be ignored,especially the values,ethics and customs in the cultural tradition of generations will guide the choice of the system,even affect,to construct different types of enterprise labor relations.In the process of the development and evolution of labor relations in the enterprises,the changes of its core system cannot completely be free from the influence of the historical structure,and often form path dependence phenomenon driven by the cultural tradition of stability and continuity.Therefore,the mode of labor relations which can promote the development of economy must be highly compatible with the national conditions of our country and the cultural tradition.The labor relations known as ’Interest consistency’ employee-employer relation with the core system of permanent employment,seniority system and labor union are recognized as the biggest driving force of Japanese rapid economic development after the war.The interest consistency labor relation is the important component of the Japanese-style management,it is also the representative case of monism labor relation theory and win-win labor relation model,so it has been paid attention to by so many scholars across the world.It is generally known that Japan is a typical post capitalist country,in accordance with the European and American political,economic,social and other systems,let alone the labor relations of enterprises in the initial stage of capitalism.However,it gradually deviated from the preset orbit during the development and came up with a unique relation with the same interests.The formation has gone through five stages of development,namely the primitive type,the ’family management’ type,the wartime control type,the occupation system type and the three pillar type.Except from the wartime control type which is not academically significant,the primary and occupation system types are formed in the Meiji Reformation and postwar democracy,whose core systems are transplanted from the developed countries of Europe and the United States under the leadership of the government,are typical mandatory transitions.However,it was not long before the two models evolved into the ’family management’ type and the three pillar type respectively through induced changes.The two models were highly similar to the employment relationship of the Edo period(1603-1867),and showed obvious continuity and coherence.It formed a path dependence phenomenon of "the in-public to the family management to the three pillars of labor relations".The driving factors for the formation of this phenomenon are the Japanese cultural tradition such as "harmony"concept,group consciousness,hierarchicy,and "home" principle.After the collapse of the bubble economy in Japan,the labor relations of ’interest consistent’ enterprises are difficult to maintain because of the loss of system conditions,and the reconstruction of the mode is being carried out.Under the influence of the cultural path dependence of institutional change,it is rebuilt toward the "interest coordination model".This paper explores and discusses the cultural path dependence in the evolution of labor relations based mainly upon the Japanese enterprises,using path dependence theory of institutional change in New Institutional Economics,by taking historical realities as the research data,and using the methods of literature statistics,logical deduction,comparative analysis,induction and deduction.The chapters are arranged as follows:Chapter One,introduction.In this chapter we elaborate the background,the core problem and the research significance of the thesis,introduce the main research methods,the framework and the basic content of the paper,and sum up the innovation.Chapter Two,theoretical basis.First the paper expounds and evaluates the theoretical basis of cultural path dependence theory in institutional change,and defines the concepts such as ’institution’ and ’culture’in this paper.Chapter Three,literature review.This paper reviews and evaluates the research achievements of domestic and foreign scholars in the fields of Japanese enterprise labor relations,Japanese cultural traditions and the changing law of Japanese enterprise labor relations.Chapter fourthe paper sorted out the evolution of ’interest consistence’ labor relations in Japanese enterprises.The paper summarized the social background,the core system,the basic characteristics of various stages of the process according to the context of historical development.Chapter five,the author analyzed the cultural path dependence in the evolution of Japanese ’interest consistence’ labor relations.According to the historical development of the context,the paper refines and summarizes the basic forms of labor relations at various stages,summarizes and analyzes the social background,core system,basic characteristics of each stage.The author obtained the path dependence of ’ in public’ system-’ principle of family management’system-’three great gods,system by untangling the evolution,and deduced that cultural tradition is the driving factor of the formation of this path.Secondly,the author analyzed the influence of cultural tradition on the concept of enterprise ethics,human nature hypothesis,corporate culture,labor disputes and labor relation model,and analyzed the reason for the formation of path dependence.In chapter six,the paper analyzes the phenomenon of cultural path dependence in the evolution of labor relations in Japan’s ’interest-consistent’ enterprises.First,the paper draws out the evolutionary path of from employment relationship of public servants,managing familiar labor relations to three pillar labor relations by sorting out the evolutionary history,and demonstrates that cultural tradition is the driving factor for the formation of this path.Secondly,it analyzes the influence of cultural tradition on enterprise ethics,human nature hypothesis,enterprise culture,labor-capital game and labor-capital relationship model,and analyzes the causes and operation mechanism of path dependence.The seventh chapter deduces and analyzes the reconstruction direction of labor relations in Japanese enterprises.After the collapse of the bubble economy,due to changes in the institutional environment,Japanese labor relations are being rebuilt toward the"interest coordination model" under the influence of the cultural path of institutional change.Chapter eight is conclusions and prospects.In this chapter we summarized the main conclusions of the paper,analyzed the shortcomings and put forward the future topics of the research.The main conclusions of the paper are as follows:First,there is a path dependence in the change process of Japanese labor relation evolution.In the ’interest consistence’ labor relation evolution,The law of japanese’interest consistence’ labor relations had undergone two mandatory changes,then two induced changes due to the incompatible with the cultural tradition of the transplanted system.The path dependence of ’in public’ system-’principle of family management’system-’three pillar’ system toke shape.Second,cultural tradition is the driving factor of the path dependence in the change process of the labor relations of Japanese enterprises.The traditional culture that ’in public’ labor-capital relations obtained,such as the idea of harmony,group consciousness,hierarchy and ’home’ principle,guides the formation of path dependence by influencing enterprise ethics,human hypothesis,corporate culture,labor game and labor relation model.Third,the labor relations of Japanese enterprises are evolving into the rebuilding of the ’interest coordination’ model.Cultural path dependence still plays a role in this process.It hinders the popularization and implementation of the new systems incompatible with the cultural tradition,but keeps the labor relations systems like lifetime employment to different degrees in the operations of the enterprises and the construction principle of’stable and harmonious’ in the labor relations of traditional enterprises has not been shaken,with the relations evolving into the rebuilding of the ’interest coordination’ model.Forth,ethics and morality are the soul of win-win enterprises labor relations.Japanese traditional culture advocates the construction of a ’family’ type of labor relations,and the family relationship is built upon the emotional,responsible and moral basis,with economic interests in the secondary position.Although the labor-capital relations system such as lifetime employment does not have high economic rationality,it builds a win-win relationship between employers and employees,and takes the responsibility of a social organization.Fifth,the transplantation of the institution must be combined with the cultural context in order to achieve good performance.As seen from the change of the ’interest consistence model’ of industrial relations of Japanese enterprises,due to the two compulsory institution transplantation incompatible with the native cultural context,no good institutional performance was achieved and another two induced changes occurred under the force of the cultural path dependence.The innovation of the research is in the following aspects:(1)It discovered the path dependence phenomenon in the change of labor relations of Japanese enterprises.(2)It analyzed the profound influence of cultural tradition on institutional changes from the perspective of labor relations.(3)It deduced the evolution direction of the labor relations in Japanese enterprises and clarified the rules of development from the " interest consistence model" to the"interest coordination model". |
