CHRISTOPHER DOMITTER (HTTP://DOMITTER.NET)
CSR Event
The leaves may be starting to fall this month, but according to press reports, green shoots are thankfully appearing.
While talk of bonuses may be back on the menu, for some companies increasing their efforts in the area of corporate social
responsibility (CSR) is just as important. Alana Bonzi, co-founder of Soleil Provence, a French-language and culture school located near the Shonan seaside in Fujisawa, hopes to bring together foreign and local residents in a beach-cleaning activity. “The goal is to feel good and do good,” states Bonzi, on the community event slated for October 4. Bonzi, who is a member of the ACCJ CSR Committee and a part-time university lecturer, hopes corporations will sponsor cleaning teams comprised of employees and families. “Foreign companies fail in Japan because they believe that their employees’ families and their communities are not their business,” continues Bonzi. “From the crowded commuter trains heading to the city, I would estimate that more than 80% of the people who live in the Fujisawa area work in Tokyo. Management can keep their employees engaged by becoming involved in the communities, with the additional benefit of potential branding exposure.” If it rains, the event will be rescheduled for October 18.
Entrepreneurship Lecture “The Role of Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in U.S.Japan Relations,” a lecture by Richard B. Dasher, director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University, at the FCCJ in June, was sure to draw an audience keen to hear an expert view on what has become a hotly debated topic of late. “Entrepreneurship is not a major U.S.-Japan bilateral concern,” states Dasher. “An Internet search for U.S.-Japan relations finds no mention of this at all,” Incongruous because, “U.S. diplomatic efforts have supported entrepreneurship in other countries.” As the world’s balance of power inches East—and Asia becomes the engine of the global economy—Dasher exclaims it extraordinary that, in Japan, economics is most linked to security issues. Considering the region sits at the crossroads of the global supply chain and boasts a new, young middle class who are early adopters of innovative technologies, Dasher posed the query regarding how Japan struggles, while America has led the world in entrepreneurship, and
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China, India and other Asian economies are making strides. Dasher presented the following facts. Some 1 in 1,000 individuals are business owners and 16 million people in the workforce are employed by companies with less than 16 employees—concluding that, in theory, Japan is a nation of SMEs. Yet, despite a large culture of small to medium-sized enterprises, the venture capital industry still has a long way to go in supporting growth. For example, VCs lent U.S. companies $30 billion to support 4,000 deals in 2008; but, in Japan, similar investment was a mere $3 billion for 3,000 deals. “Japanese start-ups and businesses tend to be more domestically focused than their U.S. counterparts,” says Dasher. “The first question any start-up looking for investment in the U.S. gets is, ‘What’s your China Strategy?’ But as Japan moves from managed growth to advanced-stage growth—a knowledgebased economy—these questions will become increasingly more important.”