[bigstrat2003]

> As you say, if you can work remotely, it may be fine but it's a different situation from working in a hub of whatever your specialty is.

The question is: is that actually a problem with Japanese work culture? That would be a large problem in US work culture because there's no loyalty from your employer, so you have to be prepared to find a new job at any moment. But it certainly used to be the case that if you worked for BigCorp, you could reasonably expect to work there for the rest of your life if you wanted. And under those conditions, it doesn't matter if the area is a hub for your job specialty.

I know Japan at least used to have a work culture where companies would be loyal to their employees, based on patio11's excellent blog post on how Japanese business culture differs from that of the US. But that was many years ago now, so I don't know if the culture in Japan is still like that or if it has changed.

[ghaff]

Well, many of those BigCorps simply went out of business over the years. Kodak in Rochester was a pretty good bet until it wasn't. Not so much culture as business realities.

Japan has been more stable in that regard. More stability but probably also fewer real opportunities.

[jack_tripper]

The successor to Kodak is Eastman chemicals which is doing quite well.

[ghaff]

Kodak actually spun out their chemical company quite a while before things really went south with film. The real problem was that Kodak had a huge film-related consumables business and, to a first approximation, that just went away.