HRM responses to ageing societies in Germany and Japan: contexts for comparison

This brief introductory discussion develops contexts within which to compare human resource management (HRM) responses to ageing societies in Japan and Germany. Here we define key concepts that occur throughout this Special Issue. While giving due attention to the historical and current contexts for emerging challenges to HRM policy-makers, practitioners and researchers posed by ageing societies in Germany and Japan, we propose that the relevant contexts for interpreting these challenges are es-sentially global, national, and regional in nature. In conclusion we present a brief overview of the contributions to this Management Review Special Issue