Books & Documentary

Past Books


Inside the Japanese company

Inside the Japanese Company Synopsis
In early Japan literature, the stereotype of the Japanese company was a large, white-collar company with hundreds or even thousands of employees. It has only been in the past decade that this picture has been balanced by studies of other types of Japanese companies and employees – blue-collar companies, small companies, female workers and so on. In fact, the backlash has been so great that the large white-collar company has now become somewhat neglected. This book seeks to redress the balance by providing an in-depth view of employee life inside a rather typical, large, white-collar traditional company. It looks at what everyday life is like for the very many Japanese employees who work in such companies, and investigates the dynamics of the social relations inside the company. In the process, we find out how these companies are faring in the economic downturn and how employees’ attitudes are changing. On one level, then, this book is an ethnography of C-Life, a white-collar Japanese organisation, offering a detailed description of life at one such company as I found it during three separate rounds of fieldwork, including a two-year stint as a regular employee. But on another level the book focuses on the relationship between the ideology and the reality in the Japanese company. It focuses on the ideology that Japanese companies subscribe to, the way in which they like to describe themselves and portray themselves to the outside world. It raises such questions as:

What do we mean by “ideology”, and at what different levels does it exist?

What is the ideology in the company?

Who is the ideology aimed at and how successfully is it promoted – and who does the promoting?

How aware are the employees of an underlying “reality”, if there is such a thing?

Do they sincerely believe the ideology?

When do they subscribe to the ideology and when do they admit that it doesn’t exactly match reality?


 

Inside the Japanese Company on Amazon









 

 


A Japanese company in crisis

A Japanese Company in Crisis Synopsis
This book is an anthropological investigation into the demise of one of Japan leading life insurance companies. What was it actually like to work at this venerable institution as it slid towards bankruptcy? How did employees react when 800 lay-offs were announced? How did they, and the company itself, cope with rapidly-changing economic and cultural circumstances? This books seeks to answer these questions, and use them as a springboard to examine the issues of strategising. What do people want out of life, and what do they do to get it? How aware are they of other peoples strategies and their own? At a time of rapid change and intense uncertainty, these issues come to the fore. C-Life was one of the eight major life insurance companies in Japan and an investment power-house in the days of Japan’s economic bubble”in the late 1980s. At this time, the life insurance industry was one of the most prestigious in which to work. But in late 1999, hit hard by the near-ten-year recession that followed the stock market crash of 1990, C-Life had a crumbling asset base, diminishing returns and new insurance policy sales were dwindling. It was teetering on the brink of failure, shortly to become Japan’s largest bankruptcy since the war. Looking at the lives of C-Life`s employees during its last days, surrounded by conflicting information, uncertain values, and insecurity, provides a fascinating case study of life in a traditional white-collar Japanese company in distress. But it also sheds insight into how individuals and groups strategise in different ways to maintain or improve their position.


A Japanese Company in Crisis on Amazon





Playing at Politics - The Book

Playing At Politics Synopsis
This book throws open the portals of the Oxford Union as it follows the excitement, anxiety and manoeuvring of a campaign for the post of President. The author, an academic anthropologist, trailed a candidate for the post of President when making a film for Japanese television. She followed him from the nomination process to election night and beyond. This has provided the basis for an ethnographic study of this most establishment institution - a study that throws new light on the workings of British politics. Using the Oxford Union as a guide the focus of the study is on the British political ideology. What kind of person succeeds in British politics? What do they need to do to win elections? The study of the Union is fascinating in its own right as ethnography of the sort of institution that has barely been studied by anthropologists.

 

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