Currently, Japan’s working-age population is on the decline, and the productivity of its current workforce is said to be the worst among all G7 countries. Therefore, Japanese company workers are under pressure to find ways to efficiently increase their performance. However, simply requiring workers to improve threatens their sense of belonging and allegiance. In order to combat this, there is a need for companies to find ways to increase organizational commitment. In this paper, we introduce eight hypotheses based on factors believed to affect work performance and organizational commitment (e.g., job autonomy and psychological empowerment) and unique aspects of Japanese management styles, including the seniority wage system and lifetime employment. Data from surveys were used to conduct a multiple regression analysis to test these hypotheses. As a result of these analyses, it became clear that job autonomy has an effect on work performance, psychological empowerment has effects on both organizational commitment and work performance, lifetime employment does not affect organizational commitment or work performance, and the seniority wage system has a positive effect on organizational commitment but a negative effect on work performance.

Job autonomy; Psychological empowerment; Japanese-style management;Seniority wage system; Long-life employment; Work performance; Organizational commitment; Regression analysis; Human resource management; IT industry