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This paper analyzes the determinants of homelessness among day laborers in San'ya, Tokyo's largest yoseba, or day labor ghetto. Yoseba have long served as kakikomidera, or "temples of refuge," for Japan's unemployed. However, under the Heisei Recession since 1990 demand for day laborers has dramatically declined and homelessness has exploded. While the link between the recession and rising homelessness among day laborers has been affirmed by social science researchers in Japan, this paper is the first research effort to empirically explore the factors that determine whether or not an individual day laborer becomes homeless. A binomial logistic regression analysis is performed on survey data from day laborers in San'ya, showing that, contrary to expectation, characteristics such as youth and possession of job-related skills were not found to significantly prevent homelessness. However, day laborers were able to draw on their formal education, past experiences as a day laborer, and interpersonal connections with labor brokers to avoid homelessness. These relationships with employers proved to have the largest impact, suggesting that this form of social capital is the most important asset in avoiding homelessness in Japan's yoseba. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been widely acknowledged that an organizational model often plays a crucial role in formation or transformation of an institution. Yet, the roles and functions of various kinds of organizational models have not been adequately explained. This paper delves into this problem using a case study of the early history of the University of Tokyo Press (UTP), which was founded in 1951 as the first university press affiliated with a national university. Through an examination of the UTP's documentary materials and in-depth interviews with former staff members, we concentrate on how the American model of university publishing was used in inventive and creative ways, to not only build up and manage the UTP but also create and solidify the emerging institution of university press publishing in Japan. We contend that a certain "translation" or "adaptation" of an existing organizational model often constitutes an integral part of "institutional entrepreneurship." We also explore the ways in which organizational institutionalism and the theory of organizational identity could be cross-fertilized. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper posits that civil society could play a role in protecting the urban natural and built environments from unsustainable development, which contributes to the formation of UHI. To investigate this question, the study compares two demographically similar municipalities in Tokyo, and examines the role of civic organizations working on environmental protection and urban planning issues and their networks in each municipality's policy. Overall, this study finds that the municipality that has developed relatively progressive environmental and urban planning policies over the past three decades, compared to the other, has a greater number of civic organizations and more networks among organizations and with municipal governments. Thus, the study concludes a positive role of civic organizations and their networks in implementing effective environmental and city planning policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large-scale networks of suppliers and prime buyers in industrial districts have rarely if ever been studied as social networks, due to analytical complexity and rarity of such datasets. With a large relational dataset on buyer/supplier relationships among over 8,300 firms in a Tokyo industrial district, we analyzed the complex regional production system quantitatively so as to find its integration mechanisms. Tests of the small-world model―of local clustering, low average distance, lack of central hubs, and sparsity of connectivity―failed due to tendencies toward a power-law degree distribution, shorter-than-random average distances, and lack of local clustering. The scale-free network model was rejected because hubs in the network do not attract ties by supplier firms but actively organize their suppliers. We then explored an alternative explanation: Does the supplier-buyer network have layers as represented by a directed acyclic graph (DAG) or depth hierarchy where each link in a chain of suppliers and buyers is always directed up the hierarchy, never forming a directed transaction cycle? Controlling some data constraints, we found that acyclic depth partition can explain the structural properties of the network. Finally, we offer statistical evidence that the DAG should be a general property for the complex webs of supplier-prime buyer relationships in industrial production networks, as modeled by Harrison White, in lieu of small-world or scale-free network models. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that examines the structural mechanisms working in the complex network of regional supplier networks in a large-scale industrial district. In this study a quantitative approach was undertaken to conduct social network analysis based on interfirm network data among 8,347 firms linked to a large-scale industrial district. The study focused on the trade relationships among manufacturing firms linked to Ohta, which is one of the 23 wards in Tokyo, Japan, as a complex network of regional supplier networks.

Question: A virtual community is often envisaged as a café, a hangout, a ?third place?. Is the metaphor appropriate and useful to study the nature of online sociality? If online interaction remains anonymous and ephemeral as often suggested, there might be a better metaphor such as a street in a large city or an elevator. Method and Data: Part ethnography and part quantitative analysis. Interaction of members of an electronic conference based in Tokyo is logged and observed in person at its get-togethers. Finding: The metaphor of virtual community as third place is indeed valid. Even in a community where anybody with internet access may join or leave at their will, ?the regulars? grow and attract newcomers. The structural ease of access and withdrawal does not always result in anonymous and impersonal interaction. In other words, online friends can be as anonymous but familiar as pub pals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on longitudinal interview research among persons living in transitional housing programs in Tokyo and Los Angeles to explore how experiences of the stigma of homelessness are shaped culturally. I find that a stronger stigma of homelessness in Japan combines with generational factors and rigid gender norms (the "male breadwinner" role) to prevent individuals experiencing homelessness to turn to friends and family for assistance in trying to exit homelessness. Also, the stigma of place in terms of residence in a program for the homeless serves as a greater barrier to employment in Tokyo. While drawing on familial and friendship ties is a primary means to exit homelessness in Los Angeles, in Tokyo individuals most often fend for themselves in the low-wage labor market. This renders exits more tenuous there given unstable work and a lack of social support. This comparative analysis contributes to the study of culture and poverty by demonstrating how stigma attached to disadvantaged statuses can vary across cultures via how it affects access to social capital and employment. It also informs urban sociology by bringing to the fore the role of culture in shaping local manifestations of inequality amid globalization, and highlighting how the stigma of place can vary according to locale. Last, it criticizes studies of homelessness by demonstrating that efforts to exit homelessness represent the major focus in addressing stigma of the condition rather than more accommodative management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]