Introduction

The purpose of this special issue is to report on the current state of Japanese corporations and inform the world of elements which have been sustained or changed to contribute to the emergence of a new management model in Japan. This special issue is based on a survey of 1,800 employees of Toyota Group companies aiming to investigate how wages and promotion affect motivation. The first section focuses on “continuity of tradition”. In this section, two papers are presented to report an analytical framework and some findings to account for traditional and changing models of Japanese career development. This special issue focuses on the “Japanese economic miracle”, which happened in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, which attracted attention from both business and academic communities.