What Were The Triggers Of Culture Change In Japan During The 1990s ?

The type of culture that facilitated Japan to hold onto its people and acquired knowledge and become consistently stronger each year was that of Confucian beliefs. Confucian values are essentially derived from three ingredients which are high moral conduct and loyalty to others, reciprocal obligations to show appreciation of network involvement, and honesty in dealing with others. The primary triggers of cultural changes in Japan during the 1990s were influenced by later generation born after 1964 which lacked commitment to traditional Japanese values and Japan’s economic slump of the 90s.Younger generation changing values are arguably a result of being brought up in a wealthier environment to that of their parents. The obvious change to younger generations values were evidence of late marriage and less marriage between, 1975 – 1995 and young executives abandoning the ideology of life time employment with one company they did not want to be tried to the company as their parents were. The younger generations were more socially mobile, than that of their parents, meaning there was a greater extent to which individuals moved out of their strata into which they were born. The late marriage, decline in marriage and new found socially mobile younger generation contributed to the decline in population of Japan, although not declining at an alarming rate.Also the rising cost of education contributed to some of the young people studying aboard a problem most highly developed nations experience.

From the 50s through the 80s during periods of extreme growth Matsushita could rely on employees to encourage their sons and daughters to follow in their foot steps and join the company where required and behave in an acceptable manner to that of their parents

Japan suffered one of the worst economic hit in history when the economic bubble deflated steeply in the 1990s. In the 1990s when the economic bubble burst, the Japanese economy entered a prolonged economic slump. Companies had hard times. They were forced to change its traditional ways of doing business. Troubled companies started to lay off older workers and abandon lifetime employment guarantees. Younger people noticed this happening, they concluded that loyalty to a company might not be reciprocated. They lost faith in the mutual loyalty and neglected the traditional Japanese value of mutual obligations and loyalty.

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