Often, you will want to begin with a broad search for your topic like Japan AND “human resources”:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Japan+AND+%22human+resources%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24
Remember, in some places, the term “industrial relations” is used for “human resources”:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Japan+AND+%22industrial+relations%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24
So you will want to use both “industrial relations” and “human resources” in separate searches.
Remember, putting multi-word searches in quotation marks, like "human resources" keeps the two words
together for purposes of the search, often making for searches with fewer bad "hits."
And, then you can focus to more narrow sub-topics: Japan AND compensation
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24&q=japan+AND+compensation&btnG=
Or use other terms to focus your topics: Japan AND "employee unions"
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24&q=japan+AND+%22employee+unions%22&btnG=
In this case, remember to use similar terms: Japan AND "collective bargaining"
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24&q=japan+AND+%22collective+bargaining%22&btnG=
More examples:
Japan AND "performance management"
Japan AND "performance reviews"
Your syllabus lists these HR functional areas: Employee Unions, Staffing, Training, Compensation, Benefits, and Performance management. Always remember to consider related terms like collective bargaining, hiring, performance reviews, pay, salaries, and etc.
If you want to further focus on articles with an “empirical” approach, you may discover, in some instances, the article may be empirical in nature, but might not contain the word "empirical." So, you should also substitute other words for empirical. Use words like “Case Study” or just "Study" or "Observation" or "Experiment" or "Survey" or "Questionnaire" or "Interview." These terms could also help you to find articles containing empirical research.
Also, remember, your search results will contain a full range of publication dates. After viewing your initial search, you may want to limit that search to more recent dates, with the options on the right column.
If you have questions or comments, please contact me.