James Abegglen

James Abegglen
Born	February 15, 1926 Michigan
Died	2007 Tokyo
Nationality	Japanese
Academic career
Field	Business theory
Institution	Sophia University
Alma mater	University of Chicago (Ph.D.)

James Christian Abegglen (1926–2007) was an American-Japanese business theorist and professor in management and economics at Sophia University. 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.

Early life and education

Abegglen was born in Michigan in 1926. During World War II, he served in the 3rd Marine Division to fight at Guadalcanal Island and Iwo Jima. When the war ended he was assigned to Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) as a researcher and returned to Japan. Following the war, Abegglen attended Chicago University and received his Ph.D in anthropology and psychology. He earned a Ph.D in economics from Harvard.

Career

Abegglen revisited Japan in 1955 as a researcher of the Ford Foundation, to study Japanese industrial organization and personnel practices which led to the publication of his work The Japanese Factory.

Abegglen 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 University in 2006. He taught "Management of Japanese Enterprises" at that school until his death from cancer on May 2, 2007.

Work

Abegglen's academic interests centered on Japanese enterprises and economic systems and their priority to western capitalism.

The Japanese Factory

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 labour union for each enterprise

Publications

Abegglen authored and co-authored ten books on Japan. A selection:

• The Japanese Factory (1958)
• Big Business in America (1955)
• Kaisha, the Japanese Corporation (1985)
• Sea Change: Pacific Asia as the New World Industrial Center (Free Press: 1994)
• 21st Century Japanese Management: New Systems, Lasting Values (Palgrave Macmillan: 2006)

Personal life

Abegglen lived permanently in Japan with his Japanese wife after 1982 and took Japanese nationality in 1997. He died of cancer in May 2007 in Tokyo, Japan.