Japan – what can we learn? - Construction Labour Research

Responsible Construction” and changing organisationalforms in the Japanese construction industry.Satomi Era, Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Social Sciences.satomiera@hotmail.com1. Historical Traits of the subcontracting systemFor a long period after WWII, construction has been the key industryin the Japanese economy. Not only as a driving force in nationalreconstruction and rapid economic growth, but also as an economicbuffer in the period of recession in the 1970s and of after-effects ofthe burst bubble in the late 1990s, it continuously played a significantrole in national “Doken-Kokka” (civil-engineering state) policy, untilthe outgoing Koizumi administration made drastic policy changestoward national “structural reform”. Though the government recentlytried to cut down public investment, it still accounts for around 6percent of GDP, a higher rate as compared to other advancedeconomies. This historically government-initiated establishment of theindustry entails particular characteristics in the construction practices.• Multi-subcontracting systemOne of the main characteristics of Japanese construction is multisubcontracting.This system originated from the traditional“Sewayaku” (stewardship) 3 in pre-war times, when “stewards” weresubcontracting work per unit, borrowing capital, machines andmaterials from general contractors, collecting workers, andsupervising sites. The subcontracting system has enlarged anddeepened, with as many layers as 5 or 6 at times, as projects havebecome large during economic development. In the 1980s, the typicalform already showed third tier subcontracting with self-employedindividuals at the bottom layer. At present, the composition of theemployers by scale shows a hierarchical figuration shown in Table 1:a relatively small number of general contractors in large firms on theone hand, and a quantity of small firms as specialist subcontractors onthe other. Among the largest firms, a Top 5 of companies (Obayashi,Shimizu, Kajima, Taisei, Takenaka) is called “super GENE-CON”(general contractors). These companies have comprehensive divisions3“Sewayaku” is not a technical term, but rather a common noun, which originally refers to a key person ormanager who facilitates a process of any kind of groups or meetings. “Sewa”=take care, “yaku”=a role. Thereis another word “Shoku-cho” (head of a certain trade) for “foreman” in Japanese, and we nowadays use thisterm.CLR News No 2/200631