キャリア形成なき能力育成のメカニズム : コンビニエンス・ストアにおける非正規従業員を事例として  [in Japanese] Mechanisms of Occupational Ability Creation without Career Development : Looking at Part-Time Workers in Convenience Stores  [in Japanese]

The increasing number of part-time jobs creates logical contradictions for the current framework of employment management. This paper points out these contradictions, referring to three types of employment management. The theoretical framework of employment management is not suited to the phenomenon of increasing employment of atypical workers. Some authors explain it through an explanation of deskilled worker, while others cannot provide an explanation in spite of focusing on the phenomenon. Past research begins from the assumption that workers, who strive to gain greater skills and achieve excellent results, aim to acquire good occupational positions, such as, for example, full-time workers. This is why the theoretical framework cannot explain this phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to describe mechanisms of occupational ability creation for workers in part-time jobs. This study examines the management of employees in convenience stores, in order to clarify the management strategy. The paper is based on interviews of employers of convenience stores. Part-time workers' careers are not generally linked to good occupational positions, but their skill levels still rise. How can employers achieve such a situation? The following findings were made. Employers understand that their employees do not like to be in competition with each other to raise their position in the company. Employers are confronted with an ambiguous situation. They simultaneously want to improve their workers skill level and encourage their workers to work hard together. This is a desirable method for them. However, if they publicly announce performance ratings for all employees, it is likely that many employees will quit. To deal with this ambiguity, employers only show the performance ratings to the individual worker, and use bonds of membership between employer and employee to probe their working conditions. Employers use these strategies to maintain and develop their companies. Using bonds of membership between employer and employee individually is a key concept in explaining the mechanism of management of part-time workers. This is most important finding of this research, and this finding could be useful in discussing the development of part-time workers.