INTERREGIONAL PERSONNEL TRANSFERS AND STRUCTURAL-CHANGE - THE CASE OF THE KAMAISHI STEELWORKS

Little is known about the use of inter-regional transfers of personnel as a means of facilitating structural change within organizations. A case study of the Kamaishi Steelworks shows how a major Japanese company with a long term commitment to the lifetime employment system has used transfers as a way of avoiding harsher measures such as compulsory redundancies. During the 1960s a surplus of labour at Kamaishi dovetailed neatly with new demands at the Tokai Steelworks, with transfers providing a means to solve both problems. Along with a freeze on new hiring, these transfers caused a rapid shift in the age structure of the residual workforce at Kamaishi, which in turn made it possible to accommodate most additional reductions over subsequent decades through a combination of transfers and retirements. Harsher business conditions in the 1970s and 1980s meant fewer openings at other steelworks, fewer permanent transfers, and more temporary loans of surplus workers to keep them busy until proper jobs could be found. In the end Nippon Steel has turned to job creation in the Kamaishi area as an alternative to transfers, since the residual workforce has a low inherent mobility. The case study demonstrates the need to interpret the occurrence of transfers in the context of the unfolding management history of the organization concerned.