Tensions in industrial democracy and human resource management: a case study of Japanese enterprises in the Philippines

Critical areas in the entry of Japanese enterprises in a developing country like the Philippines involve the following: internal labour market formation, wage and compensation system, labour-management relations schemes and other management strategies. Human resource development in Japanese enterprises in the Philippines faces structural and institutional barriers. A high turnover rate of workers is one structural barrier, involving the labour market, which prevents the internalization of skills. There is an emphasis upon job-based wages and a reliance upon the local minimum wage standards both of which are distinctly non-Japanese practices.

There is a serious gap between perceptions among Japanese expatriates, Filipino managers and the local rank-and-file workers with respect to the hierarchy of factors in wage determination. Differences with respect to the concept and valuation of work add to the problems of communication.

In the Philippines, there are structural and institutional barriers to co-operation and the formation of consensus between the workers and the owners of the means of production. A long history of jurisprudence on labour-management disputes provides an incentive to resort to the legalistic approach to settle conflicts involving work relations. This paper will examine some of the tensions that occur between the expatriate Japanese firms and the industrial relations system of the host country.