These two books examine American influence on Japanese corporate culture amid a period of globalization. Yukio Yotsumoto's work focuses on competing notions of corporate social responsibility in Japanese manufacturing firms in Kentucky. Ellen Fuller's work offers insights into how gendered and cultural biases influence personnel decisions in the Japanese subsidiary of a multinational American company. Both works are welcome additions to the body of literature on their topics: corporate social responsibility among Japanese firms and discrimination faced by Japanese—primarily women—workers.
While corporate social responsibility is not necessarily a new concept, the academic literature on this topic, particularly as it pertains to Japan, has increased noticeably in recent years. Much of this appears to relate to the globalization of Japanese firms since the 1980s. The phenomenal changes in information technology and mass communications since the 1990s have also made corporations much more sensitive to their public reputation.
In Americanizing Japanese Firms, Yukio Yotsumoto, a sociologist at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, adds to the works on Japanese corporate social responsibility by examining the experience of Japanese manufacturing firms in the United States. His book looks at the philanthropic attitudes and practices of three Japanese firms, and compares them with those of two American firms and one British firm in “Heartland,” a community in northern Kentucky. Yotsumoto's work is based on interviews with company representatives and is supplemented with secondary sources.
His book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction. Chapter 2 offers examples of works on corporate social responsibility from different disciplines. Chapter 3 discusses the research method used, while Chapter 4 provides an overview of Heartland, Tennessee. Chapter 5 and 6 look at the impact of human resource management and firm size on corporate social responsibility, respectively. Chapter 7 compares civil society in Japan and the United States. Chapter 8 discusses the different ways in which Japanese firms learn about corporate giving, while Chapter 9 ends with a conclusion.
As the chapters indicate, Yotsumoto covers a considerable range of issues in his book. However, he appears to have sacrificed substance for breadth. All academic authors face difficult choices about how to balance depth with breadth, but the trade-off chosen in this case appears unjustified. Yotsumoto spends too much of the book on peripheral topics—such as the pros and cons of the research methodology used or detailed descriptions of the geographical setting—rather than grappling with the question of corporate responsibility at the particular Japanese firms he chose to investigate.
Part of the problem appears to lie with an amorphous research agenda. For example, it is unclear whether Yotsumoto aims to investigate “the concept of corporate social responsibility in Japanese manufacturing companies in Kentucky” (p. 2), the “social impacts of Japanese manufacturing companies on Kentucky communities” (p. 3) or “explore the social phenomenon of the corporate social responsibility of Japanese firms in America” (p. 31). These are all important questions that require different approaches to research. The book would have been stronger had he chosen just one of these themes to investigate.
As well, Yotsumoto's book is disappointing because it reads like a PhD dissertation rather than a book. While doubtless a very good dissertation, the author should have done more to convert it into a book with wider appeal. The book contains a lengthy literature survey usually found in PhD dissertations. Ideally, this section should have been deleted or summarized. He could also have produced a much stronger work by engaging with academic debates rather than summarizing the existing literature. Works such as Kigyō Shakai no Rikonsutorakushon [Reconstructing Corporate Society] by Kanji Tanimoto or “The Maturing of the Japanese Economy: Corporate Social Responsibility Implications,” by Richard Wokutch and Jon Shepard, for example, have examined how and why the practice of Japanese corporate social responsibility has differed from those of Western firms. Sadly, Yotsumoto mentions neither these works nor the issues they raise. Perhaps the most important flaw of this book is that the author's conclusions are based on anecdotal evidence, which raises questions of representativeness.
Nevertheless, readers will gain valuable insight into how three Japanese firms have adopted corporate social responsibility in Heartland, Tennessee. Whether it is through decisions made by the American employees of Japanese firms or through the Japanese managers’ reading of the popular press, Yotsumoto's book illustrates the vital role that American influence has played on the philanthropic practices taken by these Japanese firms.
Yotsumoto's book investigated, at the organisational level, how Japanese firms learned to practice corporate philanthropy in an American environment. In Going Global, Ellen Fuller examines, at the individual level, how Japanese employees experienced gender or cultural discrimination in an American company. Fuller explains that “Transco” sells household and personal products—primarily to women. Through a detailed case study of the company, Fuller looks at how gender and cultural discrimination hinder workers from reaching positions they might have attained based on merit alone.
The issue of gender in Japanese firms is a widely researched topic. Notable works in this field include Staying on the Line: Blue-Collar Women in Contemporary Japan by Glenda Roberts (Honolulu: University of HawaìI Press, 1994) and Office Ladies and Salaried Men: Power, Gender and Work in Japanese Companies by Yuko Ogasawara (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998). Other scholars have focused on the role of cultural differences in management practices. Their works include American Enterprise in Japan by Tomoko Hamada (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991) and Japanese Bankers in the City of London: Language, Culture and Identity in the Japanese Diaspora by Junko Sakai (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).
Given the wealth of scholarship on this topic, Fuller could have elaborated on how her contribution is unique in examining how both gender and culture impact workers’ careers within a single firm. Unfortunately, she does not connect her excellent investigative research with the existing secondary literature in this field. Fuller suggests that while Japanese women experience better career opportunities in American rather than Japanese firms when working in lower positions of the corporate hierarchy. However, they face gender discrimination when advancing into higher, managerial positions in American firms.
Going Global is comprised of six chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction, which describes the subject matter and the methodology used. Chapter 2 identifies different groups of employees at Transco and distinguishes their experiences at the firm. Chapter 3 elaborates on how employees saw their position within the organisation, while Chapter 4 discusses how gender and cultural biases impacted workers’ experiences at Transco. Chapter 5 looks at how gender and cultural biases constrained Japanese workers’ career progression at Transco. Chapter 6 offers some conclusions.
Going Global is a well-researched case study into an American subsidiary operating in Japan. The author spent a lengthy period in the offices of her subject company and enjoyed extensive access to decision-makers. Fuller's ambitious interdisciplinary approach and unparalleled access to the firm have allowed for a rare and fascinating study into how power is negotiated between different actors within an organization. While some parts of the book are repetitive, it is well worth reading for gaining a deeper understanding of the complex power dynamics that endure within supposedly “liberal” and “globalizing” multinational companies.
One problem, however, lies in how accurately culture or gender biases can be identified as key to shaping employee experiences. Fuller does define gender and culture (p. 7–9). However, it remains unclear how lack of career progression in a particular case can be identified as a result of gender discrimination, cultural discrimination, personality traits, or something else. Fuller's suggestion that women faced greater gender discrimination the higher they ranked within the firm seems quite plausible. Yet based on such a small sample size, and without giving consideration to factors other than gender, she does not make a convincing argument.
I found that Yotsumoto's and Fuller's book shared three similar weaknesses. The first weakness lay in the lack of justification offered for a US-Japan comparison. In both books, the authors present the value of this two-country comparison as a given. In each case, American firms with superior corporate culture influence Japanese firms or employees in positive ways—either by encouraging them to practice corporate philanthropy or by offering women greater career opportunities compared to native firms. One wonders whether there might have been alternative cross-country comparisons—such as South Korea or Taiwan—that would have had stronger academic justification for highlighting corporate social responsibility (Yotsumoto) or gender/cultural discrimination (Fuller) among Japanese firms or employees. Some additional comparative insight would have been very welcome.
The second weakness lay in the representativeness of the case studies selected. While both authors acknowledge that their case studies are not necessarily representative of Japanese firms in the United States (Yotsumoto) or American subsidiaries in Japan (Fuller), they nonetheless attempt to make broader generalizations of Japanese firms or Japanese employees from their case study. These attempts are not convincing.
Perhaps most problematic is the fact that both authors leave significant gaps in the literature reviewed and do not explicitly state how previous scholarship has informed their understanding of their subject matter, or how their work contributes to broader scholarship or theoretical frameworks. While Yotsumoto does elaborate on existing scholarship in his field of corporate social responsibility, neither author truly engages with the debates discussed in the literature. Both books could have been considerably stronger had they made the attempt to speak to a wider academic audience beyond Japan specialists or those interested in Japan.
Despite these flaws, both works are valuable contributions based on original research. The authors’ dedication to their topic is palpable from their thorough and detailed accounts. Their US-Japan comparisons helps to contextualise the Japanese experience with the American experience.
