Japanese company

is an institution in which the ie (or household structure) is played out and the family (employee, wife, and children) is not a household, in the Japanese sense, but merely a family.

In this modern context, the employee’s family, which normally comprises the employee himself, his wife and children, is a unit which can no longer be conceived as an ie, but simply a family. The unit is comparable to the family of a servant or clerk who worked in the master’s ie, the managing body of the pre-modern enterprise. The role of the ie institution as the distinguished unit in society in premodern times is now played by the company. This social group consciousness symbolized in the concept of the ie, of being one unit within a frame, has been achievable at any time, has been promoted by slogans and justified in the traditional morality.

is conceived as an ie (or family group) with all its employees qualifying as members of the household, with the employer at its head readily taking responsibility for his employee’s family, for which, in turn, the primary concern is the company, rather than relatives who reside elsewhere.

A company is conceived as an ie, all its employees qualifying as members of the household, with the employer at its head. Again this ‘family’ envelops the employee’s personal family; it ‘engages’ him ‘totally’ (marugakae in Japanese). The employer readily takes responsibility for his employee’s family, for which, in turn, the primary concern is the company, rather than relatives who reside elsewhere. (The features relating the company with its employees’ families will be discussedlater, pp. 14—15.)

japanese company, n.All

japanese company