Japanese firms take different tack on CSR

Japanese companies are doing relatively well on addressing employee and environmental issues but are struggling with human rights and ethical supply chain management.

A survey of 107 Japanese companies operating in the UK showed that while almost half had a corporate responsibility policy on employee relations and a quarter had extensive policies on the environment, fewer than one in six had policies on human rights or ethical supply chain management.

The survey was conducted by the Japan Foundation, a government-backed body promoting Japanese culture, and the Tokyo-based Centre for Public Resources Development think-tank. Among companies in the research were multinationals such as Panasonic, Pioneer, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Toyota

Kyoko Fukukawa, a researcher at Bradford University’s management school who has separately studied corporate responsibility in Japan, said that by western standards some Japanese companies showed an ‘imbalance’ in their programmes, and in general they were ‘strong on the environment but much weaker on the social dimension’.

She believed this could be explained by cultural and societal differences, as human rights were seen as a matter for personal and governmental consideration in Japan, rather than for corporate policy. ‘In Japan there is little talk about human rights, in contrast to the UK,’ she said. ‘There is no urgency about human rights among CSR managers.’

Speaking in London last month at a Japan Foundation seminar, Fukukawa said Japanese companies tended to regard their social values as strong but ‘implicit' and unsaid. ‘With western-style companies things are more compliance-based, and that one-size-fits-all approach often creates problems. The Japanese find they have to adapt their operations into a western concept. CSR for Japanese companies is a bit like having sand in your eyes. It’s a kind of irritant that you have to get rid of.’

Fukukawa emphasized that dominant strands of Japanese thought, such as Confucianism, stress the principles of humanity, loyalty, correctness of social relationships and morality, but generally do so at an individual rather than institutional level.

Other seminar participants echoed Fukukawa’s views but felt it more likely that Japanese companies would accommodate western ideas. During a question and answer session, Malcolm McIntosh, director of the Applied Research Centre in Human Security at Coventry University, which advises companies on corporate responsibility, including some in the Far East, said: ‘I don’t think CSR is that great a challenge to corporate culture in Japan. It’s just that they haven’t articulated what it means.’

More than half of the respondents in the survey (63 out of 107) were implementing corporate responsibility policies and programmes, with larger companies more likely to do so. Most of the remainder were smaller companies – three-quarters of which were planning activities in this area.