Trust in Japanese Management and Culture
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DOCTORAT EN CO-ASSOCIATION ENTRE TELECOM ECOLE DE MANAGEMENT ET L ’UNIVERSITE D ’EVRY VAL D ’ESSONNES Spécialité: Sciences de Gestion Ecole doctorale: Sciences de la Société Présentée par William Evans Pour obtenir le grade de DOCTEUR DE TELECOM ECOLE DE MANAGEMENT Trust in Japanese Management and Culture Soutenue le 19 / 12 / 2012 Devant le jury composé de : Directeur de thèse : Jean-Luc Moriceau, Professeur HDR à Télécom Ecole de Management Encadrant : Nabyla Daidj, Maître de conférences à Télécom Ecole de Management Rapporteurs : Rémi Jardat, Professeur HDR à l’ISTEC Maasaki Takemura, Associate Professor à Meiji University, Tokyo Examinateurs : Annick Ancelin-Bourguignon, Professeur HDR à Essec Business School Yvon Pesqueux, Professeur HDR au CNAM Richard Soparnot, Professeur HDR à l’ESCEM Thèse n° 2012 TELE 0048 Télécom Ecole de Management n’entend donner aucune approbation ni improbation aux opinions émises dans les thèses : ces opinions doivent être considérées comme propres à leurs auteurs. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank my thesis supervisor and assistant supervisor, Jean-Luc Moriceau, PhD and Nabyla Daidj, PhD respectively. Mr. Moriceau’s pedagogic manner was extraordinary; calm and level-headed in advice and counsel, consistent in attention to the small and big issues, and deft in placing matters in context. Nabyla Daidj cast anchor, right at the start, to help me get focused and asked me the tough first questions and shared with me the right reading material. She meticulously guided me and helped dot the i’s and cross the t’s, consistently throughout the long process. They were a team and made me feel that they were there for me. I thank Professors R. Jardat (ISTEC) and M. Takemura (Meiji), A. Ancelin-Bourguignon (ESSEC), Y. Pesqueux (CNAM) and R. Soparnot (ESCEM) for participating as members of the thesis committee. Their queries, observations and comments were enriching and invaluable. Pierre-Antoine Chardel, PhD and philosopher gave me a reading list and would, quietly from the sidelines over the years, make suggestions and recommendations. What better gift than ideas? Dr. Ritta Klapper, ESC Rouen took an early interest in my research and explained analytic tools. Dr. Morten Abrahamsen, BI Norwegian Business School introduced me to the world of the International Marketing and Purchasing Group (IMP Theory). Elvin Zoet, PhD University of Utrecht spent many hours with me in Tokyo explaining the intricacies of intellectual questioning and data interpretation. Dr. Nicole Pasteur, Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, patiently allowed me to extract every ounce and scrap of advice regarding that daunting subject matter – French academics. Drs. Nicole and Georges Pasteur also allowed me to take refuge in their comfortable country house in provinces on more than one occasion when I felt the need to escape Paris. Mr. Mineshima and I were co-workers in our youth some thirty years ago and we have maintained our friendship. I extend an arigato to him and his staff for helping me to organize and prepare my travel schedule and interviews in Japan despite having to do all this but four months after the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis. Mr. Kamizuru whom I had met in Paris some years ago worked hard to coordinate my Kagoshima appointments and kindly drove me for long hours through the Kagoshima countryside during that very hot July. Messrs. Okazaki Shintaro and Nakamura Takuya, Nakayama Takashi ( Senmu ), Yamamoto Hideki and Jiro Yamamoto, PhD (close friend from university days); more than shared with me their vision of Japanese culture and management but also warmly invited me into their homes. Professors Yi-Jen Wang and Takemura Masaaki were most responsive to all my queries throughout my research. And a special thanks to Professors Takimoto Masae and Takemura for setting up interviews and visiting me in Paris to consult on my paper. I extend hearty thanks t o my classmates and friends from “Old Kobe” who helpe d me to describe that fascinating phenomenon of being a permanent foreign resident of Kobe. Last but not least, a thank you to my marketing professor from college days, Ralph Brownlee, PhD., Marquette University. OUTLINE INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………………... 1 LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………………………………………………. 11 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ……………………………………………………………………...32 RESEARCH DESIGN ….. …………………………………………………………………………….. 59 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…… .…………………………………………………………………69 CODING & GROUNDED THEORY…………………………………………………………………. 72 CATEGORIES………………………………………………………………………………………… 75 MATRIX………………………………………………………………………………………………. 78 ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................................................82 CONDENSED SUMMARIES OF THE NARRATIVES WITH SYNTHETIC ANALYSIS OF OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTARIES ………………………………………………………… 83 CLUSTER OF CATEGORIES (KEY WORDS) WHICH IMPLY DEVELOPMENT OF TRUST.....118 SCHEMA – THE PRINCIPLE CONNECTING ALL ELEMENTS (WITHIN THE CONDENSED SUMMARIES AND CLUSTERS OF CATEGORIES) TO THE PERSONAL HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE………………………………………………………………………………………. 129 PERSONAL INTERPRETATION …………………………………………………………………… 155 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………………… 176 ATTACHMENT ………………………………………………………………………………………... 181 YVON PESQUEUX AND JEAN -PIERRE TYBERGHEIN ………………………………………………….. 184 BENJAMIN CORIAT AND HIROYUKI YOSHIKAWA ……………………………………………………. 185 MATRIX NO 1 ALL RESPONDENTS’ NARRATIVES VS KEY WORD.........................................187 MATRIX NO 2 SINGLE RESPONDENT’S NARRATIVE VS ALL KEY WORDS ………………..229 GREETINGS SENT BY E -MAIL …………………………………………………………………………. 266 SELF -INTRODUCTORY & SURVEY QUESTIONS ……………………………………………………….. 267 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………………… 273 INTRODUCTION Nagasaki today still retains that old turn of the century feeling. The city is hilly and atop one is a small but consequential cemetery called the Sakamoto International Cemetery for here lie French and Vietnamese soldiers from the Boxer Rebellion, British traders, sailors and missionaries, British and American entrepreneurs. The famous, infamous and ordinary have been reposing here side by side for the last 120 years or so. Grandfather Evans with his beloved English wife and my father have a spot here. Grandfather after serving on board the USS Petrel in Southeast Asia left the US Navy in 1880 at the port of Yokohama and settled in Nagasaki. He established the first western-style pharmacy and became part of the foreign settlement which consisted of about two hundred and fifty persons. My father, born in Nagasaki studied engineering and helped the zaibatsu develop the gold mining industry in Japan and in Korea which was then a colony of the Japanese Empire. Bill Evans Sr. as a young man was a colorful personality in the Japan of pre-World War 2. An anecdote - being fluent in Japanese he was permitted to negotiate the release of two American pilots (Pangborn and Herndon) who in 1931 while attempting to fly non-stop transpacific entered Japan without proper documentation and were imprisoned by the Black Dragon Society (ultra- nationalist secret society). He enjoyed privileged relations with Japanese and American government officials albeit imprisonment during WW2 by the Japanese Kempetai (Secret Police) for his American citizenship. Ironically, upon release he continued his mining work in Korea in collaboration with American interests until the outbreak of the Korean War which was to prove his demise. Mother, a Tokyoite and I were living in Kobe. 1 St. Francis Xavier in the 16 th century alighted in Japan via Kagoshima (literally, basket- island) located at the most southern tip of Japan and established the first fountainhead of Christianity in a very hostile and closed Japan. Christians today make up only five percent of the Japanese population and western values are upheld and propagated through Christian/Catholic churches, schools and universities. My British Catholic school managed and taught by Catholic brothers comprised foreigners from some 20 countries and local Japanese, Chinese and Koreans searching for an alternative to the classic Japanese education. In addition to the normal British curriculum; we were given a healthy dose of languages (French, German, Latin and Japanese). Interestingly, Japanese was expected to be learned but we were not allowed to speak it during school hours at school. Coloni al thinking! And this in a sea of “Japaneseness”; Japanese friends, Japanese mother espousing the articles of Japanese thinking and values yet with a connection to western notions. If vagueness, ambiguity and reserve were Japanese traits then these were counterbalanced by a paradoxical acceptance of the absolute, of right and wrong, hence, a simultaneous Japanese and occidental upbringing, neither one nor the other predominating. At age eighteen I went abroad to the US for university and obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees. My business career began in New York City at age 27 in airlines advertising, Sodexho, Swatch watch and Motorola. For every company I managed to successfully orient my responsibilities towards the Japanese market and actually spent some ten years as an expatriate working in Japan. As I think back on those thirty years I consider myself fortunate in experiencing that Japan of the 1970’s, ‘80s and early 90’s; a period which scholars refer to as the “hey -days” of Japanese economic po wer. We were able to feel, think and be a part of that