Most businesses are balanced somewhere between the two extremes, although I suspect in the US businesses tend more towards hierarchy.
The "labor shortage" is a symptom of a hierarchy culture that has become too rigid. Workers are supposed to know their place - which is at the bottom of the hierarchy - and are not supposed to expect a more equal power distribution.
The fact that some businesses would rather die than relax their grip on power differentials shows how dysfunctional and self-harming this culture is.
Everywhere else, I've heard both a near universal reluctance for executive types to take any kind of pay cut ("we can only go up"), and a near universal reluctance for anyone higher in the hierarchy to earn less than their subordinates, no matter how rare their skillset. Which also creates the massive bureaucracy problem where everyone wants to go into some form of management or pseudo-management, and no one is able to prove whether this was at all beneficial for the company as a whole.
I even had a personal experience where HR was describing a new career advancement strategy, confirmed developers were paid under market rate, but bluntly said "no, this doesn't mean we'll increase your salaries right away". I was more surprised people in the room didn't react with disgust at this obvious "haha we got you by the balls" move.
What actually happened is more complicated. There are few traditions of a huge press expose.
The executive MIGHT get a pay cut. Or they might take a pay cut, but the company ALSO steers a fat discretionary contract to the CEO's brother in law, with a different last name.
Not a uniquely Japanese stitch up, but that's how it's done.
Or, they might be perfectly honest. And outside appearances are exactly what happened.
The tl;dr of doing business in Japan is, you NEVER know the full story. Unless a personal relationship clues you in. Personal relationships are E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Particularly because everyone lives in Tokyo.
I did this once back when working crap jobs. I knew I had leverage because the store was having issues hiring anyone to do the work so I utilize that leverage to try to negotiate a raise and control of my schedule.
Which I got… well sort of. The raise the the most pathetic I ever got, and I was told “that’s all the computer will let me give”.
Regardless though, I had successfully negotiated something, sadly it didn’t matter, despite slightly bumping my pay and gaining better control of my schedule, corporate came down with an idiotic merge and a plan to get rid of all full time employees that backfired, and they all left.
Suddenly, the manager begins to shift more and more responsibilities to us, to the point where I control what days I work but I am now working 12 hours nights because the only other people good at their job left.
After one night, I said fuck it and just abandoned the job, didn’t even give any notice, and I never felt particularly bad about it. Surprise, the genius moves pulled by corporate ended up pushing the company into bankruptcy.