"Japan is often seen as being representative of organization-based Human Resource Management (HRM). However, according to recent research in Japan, there appears to be a move towards market-based HRM. The author examined whether Japanese HRM was actually shifting towards market-based HRM by comparing Japan with the UK, which is often said to epitomize market-based HRM, and their pay systems. The author first identified key characteristics of the Japanese and UK pay systems and thereafter examined whether the key characteristics of these pay systems have been experiencing any changes. As a result, it was found that Japanese pay systems have been changing towards market-based pay systems, while there were have been few changes in the UK pay systems. Furthermore, it was shown that the changes in the Japanese pay system were sequential. This phenomenon supports the configurational perspective among the three popular HRM perspectives - universalistic, contingency and configurational."

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