Social Inclusion of Foreign Employees in Globalizing Japanese Firms

グローバルカ　スル　ニホン　キギョウ　ニオケル　ガイコクジン　ホウセツ　モンダイ

マキ, ミキオ

Maki, Mikio

戎谷, 梓

エビスヤ, アズサ

Ebisuya, Azusa

関口, 倫紀

セキグチ, トモキ

Sekiguchi, Tomoki

The Economic Society of Osaka University

オオサカ　ダイガク　ケイザイ　ガッカイ

外国人社員

コンテクスト

日本的経営スタイル

inclusion

foreign employees

context

Japanese management

Foreign employees have often been considered as “marginal” in Japanese companies regarding international human resource management. However, they should be included in the “core” to survive the fierce global competition. It is thought that Japanese companies’ corporate culture, which has been nourished in the cultural environment of Japan, segregates foreign employees from Japanese in the workplace. Group performance, which is often viewed as characteristic work behavior of Japanese employees, reflects “Ie” (family/household in Japanese)-mentality and/or “Uchi/Soto” (in-group/out-group separation in Japanese)-mentality. In many cases, frictions between Japanese and foreign employees in the international operations are caused by communication problems. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s theory of high- and low-context culture will help us to understand that it will be a hard task for Japanese, who are of typical high context culture, to cope with inter-cultural communication problems. To include foreign employees in the “core”, Japanese companies need to prepare and implement international HR systems without sacrificing effective implicit communication among Japanese, and high motivation nourished by organizational integration and sense of participation by all employees, which are both considered advantages of Japanese companies. This paper proposes three directions concerning inclusion of foreign employees in the “core” of Japanese companies.

戎谷, 梓

関口, 倫紀