Why Japanese choose Britain
Investment flow in Britain by the Japanese has reached ¥ 1 trillion in 2011, the figure being second only to the US. Britain is by far the most favored franchise for the Japanese firms. Why is this? Language, low corporate tax, and flexible employment standards are reasons often cited. Deregulations in the UK also brought more flexibility in areas of energy, finance, and logistics as a well. However, from the organizational structural point of view, Britain and Japan are so far apart.
Are we oil and water?
Japan is a representative of non-liberal governance. It forms group alliances under banking lead governance, with a stakeholder concept focusing on long term relational counteracting. On the other hand, Britain is the leading player of liberal governance. They are advocates of agency theory, focusing on cost and profit. For example, when looking at decision-making processes, the divergence between the two is clear. The Japanese resort to consensus, and love unanimous decisions. I feel we often get a “forced unanimous consensus”. On the other hand, Britain follows a top-down decision-making process. The two are like water and oil. However the Japanese still choose London over Frankfurt. Why is this?
Intangible and qualitative characters we share
There must be intangible and qualitative features that make this happen. Simply put, I think it is the people. When I tell a Briton “You are European”, they look at me in a very strange way. When I tell Japanese “You are Asian”; they also look at me in the same strange away. We are islanders, developing our own independent ways. We have gone through a harsher environment, but also reaped the benefit of adversity.
Kate Fox, an anthropologist, in her book Watching the English describes complex sets of unspoken rules that are unique to the British: The reflex apology (sorry, sorry, and sorry); the money-talk taboo; the frowning over being excessively emotional in public. These inhibited, reserved attitudes, she says, are unique to the British and no other people in the world possess them—with the exception of… the Japanese.
We learned the spirit of innovation from the British
This mutual islander mentality is the source of entrepreneurship and innovation. Japan takes the form of “intrapreneurship” rather than entrepreneurship, but the quest for innovation is strong. Japan is the forefront of technological innovation as we speak. Over the years, Japan may have learned the technology from the Germans and the Americans. However, I believe we learned the spirit of innovation from the British. One can see a good example of this from the Choshu Five.
We need to support globalization together
It is very important that we keep this mutual asset at times like this. We are seeing failure in multiculturalism in Europe. At the same time, we are seeing recession. These two incidents create a bad toxic mix of protectionism. And, protection is cancer to globalization.
From wealth creation point of view, it is very important that we—the islanders—support the wall of resistance against protectionism, which is detrimental to wealth creation via globalization. Why us? Because who better than the British and the Japanese—us islanders—to understand the benefits reaped from globalization?
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