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Moving from “Engineering” oriented R&D being characterised by research aimed at meeting immediate market needs, Japanese companies are developing new organisational and administrative structures to permit original R&D. They are also forced to solve problems of growing labour‐costs and shortages of managerial posts stemming from the ageing of the workforce. Within this wider process, reforms of the personnel administration of R&D are being initiated. The key characteristics lie in the fact that such modifications as expansions in the scope of rotation and clarification and diversification of career paths are common to engineers/scientists of all levels. This being the case, one can expect that the Japanese style of personnel administration system will change along the lines of one which emphasises uniformity among employees both in terms of career path and method for determining reward. Within the ongoing fundamental reform, a new model of creative and original R&D is expected to emerge in Japan.