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It would be wrong to imagine that the Japanese modern industrial structure is primarily made up of internationally known groups such as Mitsubishi Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. The practical position is somewhat different. Certainly the large internationally known groups are quite fundamental to the modern, highly industrialized, infra-structure, particularly as these groups are export orientated. However, in terms of employment, if a boundary is taken of enterprises employing 1000 employees or more, these major groups only accounted in 1975 for some 24 per cent of the employed working population. It seems to be generally accepted that there are three very important institutional factors which are responsible for the successful and distinctive system of industrial relations in Japan, namely, life long employment, the seniority wage system and enterprise trade unionism. These exist to a lesser extent in the smaller firms sector.