James Abegglen

James C. Abegglen (1926-2007) was a university professor in management and economics, the author and co-author of ten books on Japan. He was one of the founders of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 1963, and the first representative director of its Tokyo branch, founded in 1966. His academic interests focused on Japanese enterprises, economic systems and their priority to the western capitalism.

He was born in Michigan. After graduation from Harvard and the University of Chicago, he served in the Third Marine Division to fight at Guadalcanal Island and Iwo Jima.　As World War II ended, he left in 1945 for Hiroshima as a member of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS). He visited Japan again in 1955 as a researcher of the Ford Foundation, to study Japanese industrial organization and personnel practices. His book as a result of the research, "The Japanese Factory" published in 1958, pointed out the following features of employment and the strength of their mechanism in Japanese corporations:

* Lifetime employment (Employment extends over the whole working life of the employee)
* Seniority-based wages (Compensation is determined by the number of years of employment in the company)
* Periodic hiring (Employing young people fresh out of school)
* In-company training (Employing workers based on personal qualities rather than job suitability, providing on-the-job training after hire)
* Enterprise union (one labor union for each enterprise)

Those employment practices, in strong contrast with the West, often at first startled and intrigued people in the United States, thus his book became a best-seller.

He had lived permanently in Japan with his Japanese wife since 1982, then succeeded at acquirement of Japanese nationality in 1997. He had served successively as professor and director of the Graduate School of Comparative Culture at Sophia University, Chairperson of Asia Advisory Service K.K., and dean emeritus of Globis Management School in 2006. He had taught "Management of Japanese Enterprises" at that school until he died of cancer on May 2, 2007.

Published works

*"The Japanese Factory" (1958)
*"Big Business in America" (1955)
*"Kaisha, the Japanese Corporation" (1985)