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[Grand Prize]
Advocacy for 'Corporate Foreign Policy'
Mr. Akihiko TAMURA (Japanese, 38 years old)
(the original text is Japanese)
The era of globalization is an “age of uncertainty.” To enhance
predictability, orders and rules at an international level are being sought
with regard to a wide range of economic affairs, from trade to investment,
currency and standards. To build the orders and rules, which enable us to
address problems that may arise in the future, a preemptive approach backed
by imagination is required. It is noted, however, that Japan, public or
private, has not necessarily been proficient in such an approach.
Globalization has also brought a change in the composition of players in
the international order. In addition to sovereign states, which have been
traditionally its constituents, non-governmental organizations (NGO) and
corporations have also emerged as its key players. The borderline between
the public and private sectors has thus become blurred. This means that
corporations are now directly responsible for the creation and maintenance
of the international order. The international order is common property,
and it is of a public nature to build and maintain that order. Western corporations
precede Japanese counterparts in their involvement in activities for the
public interests of the international society.
In light of the above two points, this essay advocates that Japanese corporations
should be more actively engaged in constructing the international orders,
and particularly the international economic orders and rules, to the extent
that they function as the primary constituents. This philosophy is summed
up in the term “corporate foreign policy.” “Corporate
foreign policy” is not simply acts performed by corporations to achieve
public interests. It rather refers to an initiative through which corporations
strive to spread a web of orders and rules throughout the international
economic environment as much as possible. The orders and rules may take
a form of self-imposed disciplines on the part of corporations. They may
take a form of having corporations exercise a substantive influence on the
intergovernmental regime. The form of the corporate involvement and the
enforceability of the rules vary depending on issues which the rules seek
to address.
[Prize for Excellence]
Globalization's New Face - Corporate Social Responsibility
Ms. Lauma SKRUZMANE (Latvian, 23 years old)
Having swept world markets with the efficiency of their manufacturing methods,
Japanese corporations are now facing the need to adjust to new conditions
of the globalized market place. This essay looks at Japanese companies and
the new face of globalization – Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Even though, CSR has been a recently heatedly discussed concept in the West,
this essay argues that for Japanese companies there is no such novelty attached
to addressing issues coming under the umbrella of the CSR. Japanese companies
have embraced the core CSR principle of raising the value of the company
by caring for all stakeholders involved in the framework of their domestic
and overseas operations already for quite a considerable time. Meanwhile,
Western companies have tended to focus on short-term profit generation for
their shareholders paying little attention to the overall stakeholders.
Japan has emerged as a world leader for environmentally conscious corporate
management. However, workforce related issues of CSR seem to be largely
overlooked. Should Japan be able to realize its vision of a strong economy
with a strong society that utilizes the energies of a diverse range of individuals,
much more of Japanese CSR initiatives must be directed towards addressing
human resources issues.
Intercultural Management Skills: What Japanese Corporations Need to Know Mr. Makoto YODA (Japanese, 47 years old)
(the original text is Japanese)
Japanese expatriates stationed in overseas offices of Japanese corporations
often complain that locally hired staff members under their supervision
fail to do “ho-ren-so,” an acronym for hokoku
(to report), renraku (to inform) and sodan
(to consult). People incapable of such a routine, they say, cannot be entrusted
with important jobs.
What they don’t realize, however, is the fact that it is not until
they were hired by a company and received training that they began doing
horenso themselves. Forgetting that it is a practice they acquired
through learning, they simply expect overseas employees to have it. If they
want their staff to do horenso, they need to be aware of the need
to explain what it is, why it is necessary and what effects it achieves.
To be aware is one of the skills that are the building blocks of what this
thesis calls Intercultural Management Skills, an ability to convey one’s
intent to people of different cultural backgrounds and to build interpersonal
relations based on trust. This thesis elucidates three major intercultural
managerial skills—to be aware, to explain and to persevere—and
attempts to demonstrate their importance to the Japanese and Japanese corporations
of the future. With “intercultural” as a key word, it discusses
what the Japanese corporation and the Japanese ought to be in an age of
globalization.
Globalization of Regional Corporations: Case Studies and Future Avenues Mr. Sadaka INASAWA (Japanese, 29 years old)
(the original text is Japanese)
For some time now, globalization has been spreading among corporations throughout
the world, but Japanese regional corporations have seldom been mentioned
in that context. Active efforts toward globalization are required, however,
to revitalize such corporations and the regions where they are located.
This essay discusses how regional corporations can achieve globalization
not just from the perspective of goods and assets which have often been
discussed in the past, but also from the standpoint of people and information.
In particular, the following three avenues of globalization form the core
of the essay: regional efforts through cooperation among industry, government,
and academia; attraction of foreign companies to the regions; and human
resources measures related to foreign students.
Regarding regional efforts through cooperation among industry, government,
and academia, this essay touches on regional corporations that share resources,
including human resources and facilities, and cites cases in Nagoya and
Kyushu. Regarding the attraction of foreign companies to the regions, this
essay cites, based on a survey, changes in the awareness of both the companies
being invited to the region and the regions extending the invitation and
shows that momentum is rising in the regional areas of Japan to attract
foreign companies with different languages and cultures. Regarding human
resources measures related to foreign students, this essay discusses the
active introduction and use of internship systems in addition to employment;
as a preliminary stage before hiring, internships offer the merits of enhancing
mutual understanding.
Through these kinds of efforts, regional corporations could play an independent
role in the regional economy. It could also be an opportunity for breakthroughs
that can transform the economic structure often seen in the regional areas
of Japan, that of dependence on the government.
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