Dr Harald Conrad
School of East Asian Studies
Honorary Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
- Profile
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Harald Conrad is Sasakawa Lecturer in Japan’s Economy and Management at the University of Sheffield’s School of East Asian Studies. From 2000 to 2008 he worked in Japan as Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies and Associate Professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. From 2005 to 2008 he was concurrently Japan Representative of the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Tokyo.
Harald’s research focuses on Japanese and comparative social policy, industrial relations, human resource management, economic issues related to demographic change and cross-cultural negotiation behaviour. He is Director of Research of the “Business, Political Economy and Development” cluster at the White Rose East Asia Centre, a member of the International Advisory Board of Asia Pacific World and member of the editorial boards of Contemporary Japan and Japan Forum. From 2005 to 2011 he was elected Council Member of the European Association of Japanese Studies.
- Research interests
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Recent and Ongoing Research Projects
Harald’s recent and ongoing research has focused on:
- Building an International Human Resource Base: Japanese Multinationals and the Recruitment of Fresh Foreign Graduates (FFGs) for Tokyo
- Managing (Un)certainty in the Japanese Antique Art Trade - How Economic and Social Factors Shape a Market
- Changes in Japanese human resource management practices which are related to the aging workforce.
- The relationship between occupational pension and pay system reforms in Japan.
- The role of Japanese labour unions in changes of company benefit systems since the 1990s.
- UK institutional investors’ attitudes towards Japanese equities.
- Economic sociology perspectives on the Japanese antique art trade.
- Publications
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Books
- The Japanese Social Security System in Transition – An Evaluation of the Current Pension Reforms. München: iudicium Verlag.
- Reformen und Problembereiche der öffentlichen Rentenversicherung in Japan [Reforms and Problem Areas in the Public Pension System in Japan]. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.
Edited books
- The Demographic Challenge: A Handbook about Japan. BRILL.
- Deutschland und Japan – Mit Reformen zu neuer Dynamik. Köln: Deutscher Institutsverlag.
- Aging and Social Policy – A German-Japanese Comparison. Iudicium Verlag: Munich.
- Japanstudien 13 – Wohnen in Japan. Munich: Iudicium Verlag.
Journal articles
- Transnationalization of a Recruitment Regime: Skilled Migration to Japan. International Migration. View this article in WRRO
- Brokers and the Organization of Recruitment of ‘Global Talent’ by Japanese Firms – A Migration Perspective. Social Science Japan Journal, 21(1), 67-88. View this article in WRRO
- Overcoming the ethnocentric firm? – foreign fresh university graduate employment in Japan as a new international human resource development method. International Journal of Human Resource Management. View this article in WRRO
- Discourses of Female Entrepreneurship in the Japanese Business Press – 25 Years and Little Progress. Japanese Studies, 37(1), 1-22. View this article in WRRO
- Managing (Un)certainty in the Japanese Antique Art Trade - How Economic and Social Factors Shape a Market. Japan Forum, 28(2), 233-254. View this article in WRRO
- United Kingdom Fund Managers
and Institutional Investors’ Attitudes
Toward Japanese Equities. The Japanese Economy, 39(1), 105-130. View this article in WRRO
- Economic system and welfare regime dynamics in Japan since the early 2000s - The case of occupational pensions. Journal of Social Policy, 41(1), 119-140. View this article in WRRO
- Change and continuity in Japanese compensation practices: The case of occupational pensions since the early 2000s. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(15), 3051-3067. View this article in WRRO
- From Seniority to Performance Principle: The Evolution of Pay Practices in Japanese Firms since the 1990s. SOC SCI JPN J, 13(1), 115-135. View this article in WRRO
- Die Beschäftigung älterer Menschen in Japan – Ursachen und Rahmenbedingungen einer hohen Alterserwerbsquote. [The employment of older persons in Japan - motives and institutional factors behind the high labour force participation]. Nova Acta Leopoldina NF (Journal of the German Academy of Sciences), 101(365), 111-142.
- Doitsu ni okeru rōdōshijō kaikaku no mondaiten [Problems of Recent Labor Market Reforms in Germany]. Doitsu ni okeru rōdō shijō kaikaku – sono hyōka to tenbō. Rōdō Seisaku Kenkyū Hōkokusho, 69, 63-73.
- Kinnen no doitsu ni okeru kigyō nenkin seido no tenkai [Recent Developments in Germany’s Corporate Pension System. Kaigai Shakai Hoshō Kenkyū (The Review of Comparative Social Security Research), 151(Summer), 98-109.
- Sustaining Old Age Security in Japan – Toward a New Public-Private Pension Mix. Journal of Japanese Law, 8(15), 199-230.
- Sustaining Old Age Security in Japan – Toward a New Public-Private Pension Mix. Journal of Japanese Law, 8(15), 199-230.
- The 2000/2001 Pension Reform in Germany – Implications and Possible Lessons for Japan. The Japanese Journal of Social Security Policy, 2(2), 1-12.
- The 2000/2001 Pension Reform in Germany – Implications and Possible Lessons for Japan. The Japanese Journal of Social Security Policy, 2(2), 1-12. View this article in WRRO
- Jüngste Rentenreformen in Japan – Zur Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von öffentlicher und privater Alterssicherung. [Recent Pension Reforms in Japan – A New Public-Private Balance]. Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Arbeits- und Sozialrecht, 2, 97-119. View this article in WRRO
- Senshinkoku ni okeru shakai hoshō nenkin e no kakutei kyoshutsu kojin kanjō dōnyū ni tsuite – doitsu no baai. [The Introduction of Individual Retirement Accounts in the Public Pension Systems of Industrialized Nations: The Case of Germany]. Nenkin rebyū (Pension Review), 7, 3-3.
- Doitsu in okeru 2000-nen nenkin kaikaku no genjō to kadai [German Pension Reform in 2000: Current Issues and Problems]. Akuchuari jānaru (Actuary Journal), 13, 40-52.
Chapters
- The 'Varieties-of-Capitalism' (VOC) and the 'Japanese Model' during Globalisation: Change and Continuity in Japanese Human Resource Management and Corporate Governance Practices since the 2000s In Kähler J & Revelas K (Ed.), Issues of the European and International Economy in the Era of Globalization (pp. 253-283). Erlangen: FAU University Press. View this article in WRRO
- Social policy responses to the 'gap society': The structural limitations of the Japanese welfare state and related official discourses since the 1990s, Social Inequality in Post-Growth Japan: Transformation during Economic and Demographic Stagnation (pp. 121-133). View this article in WRRO
- Promotion and compensation In Haghirian P (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management (pp. 174-184). Routledge View this article in WRRO
- Company welfare benefit systems In Haghirian P (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management (pp. 185-195). Routledge View this article in WRRO
- Continuity and Change in Asian Employment Systems – A Comparison of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, The Oxford Handbook of Employment Relations Comparative Employment Systems (pp. 334-358). Oxford University Press
- Converging to a New Type of Human Resource Management? – Compensation System Reforms in Japan since the 1990s In Kushida K, Shimizu K & Oi JC (Ed.), The Politics of Economic Restructuring and System Reform in Japan (pp. 173-197). Stanford: Brookings/APARC.
- Sozialversicherungsrechtliche Aspekte der Personalpolitik in Japan. [Aspects of Social Security Law in Human Resource Management in Japan], Personalwirtschaftlicher Wandel in Japan Gesellschaftlicher Wertewandel und Folgen für die Unternehmungskultur und Mitarbeiterführung (pp. 269-284). Springer-Verlag
- Demographic challenges for human resource management practices and labour market policies in Japan and Germany - An overview, Human Resource Management in Ageing Societies: Perspectives from Japan and Germany (pp. 1-12).
- Introduction In Coulmas F, Conrad H, Schad-Seifert A & Vogt G (Ed.), The Demographic Challenge: A Handbook about Japan (pp. 815-820). Brill
- Chapter Fifty-Four. Human resource management practices and the ageing workforce, The Demographic Challenge: A Handbook about Japan (pp. 979-997). BRILL
- Recent changes in compensation practices of large Japanese companies: wages, bonuses and corporate pensions., Perspectives on Work, Employment and Society in Japan (pp. 79-97). Palgrave Macmillan
- Japanese Multinational Companies and the Control of Overseas Investments – The Role of Expatriates, Young Foreign Employees and Japan’s Soft Power In Aulakh P & Kelly PF (Ed.), Mobilities of Labour and Capital in Asia: Spatialities, Institutions, and Cultures Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- The Japanese Social Security System in Transition – An Evaluation of the Current Pension Reforms. München: iudicium Verlag.