Social activism is not a nation state-bound phenomenon, but globally embedded. The Japanese labour movement represents a particularly interesting case to study the relationship between global frameworks of activism and their transformative impact on domestic activism, as it displays a much broader diversity than institutionalist approaches can explain. While parts of the Japanese labour movement strongly resemble their international counterparts, others remain remarkably distinct.

To explain this diversity, I elucidate the interaction between isomorphic influences of global frameworks of labour activism and the strategic selection and adoption by different actors in the Japanese labour movement.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 unleashed unprecedented tremors and a devastating tsunami, damaging one million buildings and rendering 300,000 victims displaced and dispossessed. Former home-owners and businesspeople found themselves in the position of seeking loans to rebuild and invest, while being unable to pay off pre-disaster mortgages and debts.

Largely unnoticed outside of Japan, this so-called “double-loan crisis” promoted private and corporate insolvency, threatening financial institutions, jeopardising disaster recovery and entrenching social inequality. Treating issues of property insurance, debtor-creditor, social welfare, charity, financial and insolvency law, this paper examines the situation of the tsunami victims from a legal perspective.

Japan ranks among the first in the world in terms of average life-expectancy, but its combination of high-age with a low birthrate is gradually turning it into a “society of many deaths” (tashi shakai). With the current change in family structures, the need to make arrangements for one’s own passing is felt by an ever growing number of people. Trying to cash in on this demand, the ailing funeral industry has started to urge individuals to take care of their own future grave, funeral, inheritance, elderly care and property clean-up, promoting these activities under the label “shūkatsu” (end of life activity).

Mothers often play an important role when it comes to social movements and political activism, in Japan and elsewhere.

In this conference, we aim at bringing together several of the researchers who study mothers as activists in social movements in Japan, with a particular focus on, but not limited to, activism after 3.11.

Tomoki Sekiguchi is professor of management at the Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University. His research interests centre on individual behaviour in organizations, organizational justice, person-environment fit, hiring decision-making, management fashion, and international and strategic human resource management.

In his presentation he will report on a growing number of Japanese firms that are hiring non-Japanese employees in their domestic workplace in order to promote uchi-naru kokusaika or internal internationalisation of management.

The presentation will be followed by comments from Sierk Horn and Hendrik Meyer-Ohle.

To most Americans, it is perfectly obvious that the two atomic bombs ended World War II. Yet at least four other developments helped persuade Japanese leaders to surrender.

The Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan on August 8 may have been more decisive, some historians argue. However, the other three factors are rarely discussed.

On its surface, Japan’s health system appears to be one of the world’s best. The country provides universal access to health care and scores well on most public health metrics. For example, the Japanese have the longest life expectancy and among the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, and they lose significantly fewer potential life years to disease than do the citizens of almost any other country.

However, Japan’s health system – like those in many other countries – is under severe stress. An increasing number of patients are finding it difficult to obtain the right care at the right time and place. The quality of care delivered varies markedly. Many of the cost-control measures the system has implemented have damaged its cost-effectiveness.