Even for the land that invented Toyota-style efficiency, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is on a tear. His ruling Liberal Democratic Party pushed 98 percent of its bills through Parliament, a success rate not seen in Japan for over a decade.

But after a meteoric rise in the market last year, Tokyo shares have lately lost momentum as investors increasingly question whether Japan’s hard-charging prime minister can actually achieve his ambitious goals.

Mr. Abe’s solution? Another blast of economic measures. And in a harbinger of just how far he will go to rouse Japan’s long-sluggish economy, he promised, among other things, to take on Japan’s staid corporate managers and one of the most sacred of sacred cows: the nation’s interlocking connections among Japanese companies that form the core of Japan, Inc.

In a televised address to the nation on Tuesday, Mr. Abe unveiled a fresh set of economic policies intended to kick-start growth in Japan, the world’s third-largest economy. The country needs more women in the workplace, he said, and more entrepreneurs and more foreign workers. Japanese corporations would do well to ditch their anemic seniority-based systems and start rewarding high performers. And company boards need to start hustling to generate better returns and lure back investors.