Japan expert to take P & O chair

Dr Mari Sako (pictured left), Reader in Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science since 1994, has been appointed as the first Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Professor of Management Studies (International Business), with effect from 1 October 1997. The new Chair has been generously endowed by The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which has an extensive association with the University and Templeton College in management training. Japanese-born Dr Sako, who will be a Fellow of Templeton College, gained a BA in PPE at Lady Margaret Hall (1981), followed by an M.Sc. in Economics at LSE (1982) and further study at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA (1982–4). She completed a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of London (1990), entitled `Buyer–Supplier Relationships and Economic Performance: Evidence from Britain and Japan.' She joined the academic staff at LSE in 1987 as a Lecturer in Modern Japanese Business, becoming a Lecturer in Industrial Relations in 1992, and then Reader in 1994. In 1992, she also held a Fellowship of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science at Kyoto University, Japan. She has held several major research grants, including recently: a grant from the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) to conduct a large scale survey of component suppliers in Europe and Japan; from the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE to examine co-ordinated pay bargaining in Japan; and from the Japan Productivity Centre for Socio-Economic Development to examine the role of trade union federations in the car and electrical machinery industry in Japan. As a consultant to the World Bank, she has recently acted as adviser on a study on `Human Capital Accumulation and Utilisation in East Asia' and completed a report on `Skill Testing and Certification in Japan.' Her publications include How the Japanese Learn to Work (Routledge, 1989), Prices, Quality, and Trust: Inter-firm Relations in Britain and Japan (CUP, 1992), and Japanese Labour and Management in Transition: Diversity, Flexibility and Participation (Routledge, 1997). She has also written numerous articles for academic journals and is a member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Industrial Relations.