The Study Of Corporate Social Responsibility In Japan

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important question with global economic and social development. Japan began to early research on CSR among developed countries. Furthermore, because corporate bad incidents often occur from the middle and last of 1990's, Japan attached very importance to research on CSR. There are a lot of outstanding works in theory and demonstration. The research on these Japanese works is useful to push the development of CSR in China.CSR is base on some conditions, in general there are two conditions. Firstly, corporate scale has become bigger and bigger, and corporations have more and more powers to impact on economy and society. At the same time, because corporate goals deviated from social needs, the criticisms, attacks and pressures on corporations became more and more too. Secondly, because stockholders have dispersed and the processes of management have specializated, the position of managers is rising and managers'power is increasing, managers are trying to manage corporations with the ideas of manager's social responsibility. These two basic conditions are close together, and make CSR come into being and accept recognition.The conception of CSR is various and isn't consistent. In general, most of Japanese researchers understand the conception from broad sense, and suggest that CSR is"corporations are not only obey laws, on the form of favoring corporation, citizen, community and society, but also through the means of keeping the balance among economy, environment and society, achieve enterprise success. In 1960's and 1970's, people focused on CSR and produced various theories. In general, these theories can sum up positive CSR theory and negative CSR theory. Negative CSR theory that Milton Friedman and T. Levitt are representative is subject to comprehensive criticisms. However, positive CSR theory has been accepted generally now, K. Davis's"balance of power and responsibility"rule and Edward Freeman's"stockholders theory"are representatives of positive CSR theory. The relation between CSR and profits is always be attention by researchers, in general, it is be suggested that the both sides aren't opposite, in a way, the both sides can be consistent. Furthermore, the criterions that estimate corporation are reforming, profit has not been an exclusive criterion.After the Second World War , it takes place the wave of corporate bad incidents and corporation criticisms every ten years, during these period the discussion about CSR is be attention once again. According to the different CSR content in every period, there five stages about development of CSR in Japan,①the first period (1960')②the second period (1970')③the third period (1980')④the fourth period (1990')⑤the fifth period (the beginning of 21th century), thereinto, it is especial attention on the CSR waves that occurred in 1970's and the beginning of 21 Century.By the push of the researches of CSR in USA and the internationalization of Japanese corporations, CSR theory began to produce in 1950's in Japan, and it is be developed and advanced during several decades, nowdays, CSR theory appear the trend of comprehensive, practical and international in Japan. There are four periods about the development of the theory CSR in Japan.The first period (1948—1962), it came forth the viewpoint that businessman social responsibility.The second period (1970—1983), the theory of CSR has become boom..The third period (1991—1994), the theory of corporate philanthropy has been developed.The fourth period (1996—now), the theory of social responsibility, corporate philanthropy and corporate ethic are booming together, and It entered the period of international standardization.From the detailed point, we can understand CSR and the relation between CSR and corporate value in Japan through the relation to corporate governance, stockholders, environmental management and corporate philanthropy.Firstly, It is CSR and corporate governance in Japan.. corporate governance is organizational guarantee to fulfilling CSR, so what corporate governance is good or bad impacts on the degree of fulfilling CSR. Because recently corporate governance has led to some corporate bad incidents in Japan, Japan is reforming corporate governance, the corporate governance in Japan that attached importance to benefits of partners and employees and neglected ROE is silently changing, and constructing the Japanese corporate governance that its purpose is fulfilling CSR.Secondly, It is CSR and stockholders in Japan. The market that value CSR is becoming large, corporations have to accord to the needs of CSR to work. In this way, corporations must reconsider and improve the relations among stockholders. Stockholders such as employees, consumers, investors, community, business partners, etc have different needs to corporation, Japanese corporations keep the former practices that attach importance to employee and consumers, at the same time, changed the practices that ignore other stockholders (such as investors), it can raise the corporate value. Thirdly, It is CSR and environmental management. It brought social effects of pollution during the period of economy high speed increase, and the problems of social effects of pollution have been evolved gradually the problems of earth environment. Environmental responsibility is one of important CSR. Recently, from the point of the change of environmental management ideas and the development of environmental management system, environmental management have made a great progress in Japan.Environmental management help improve corporate image, so corporations can accept assistances from consumers, investors, etc stockholders, and raise corporate value. Fourthly, It is CSR and corporate philanthropy. Corporate philanthropy is one of the forms of fulfilling CSR, It doesn't limit simple philanthropy such as donation, salvation, etc , in order to better fulfilling CSR, we should put corporate philanthropy into corporate strategy. Corporations have to advance strategy philanthropy to corporate social strategy. There are a lot of successful examples about Japanese corporations do it. In order to better raise corporate value, we should estimate and manage corporate philanthropy. CSR movement began to impact on China in the beginning of 1990's, subsequently It made a great progress. CSR has become one of social focuses. However, compare to developed countries, CSR in China is still not advanced, and there are a lot of problems. Before it succeed in advancing CSR in China, we must do a lot of things and spend a lot of times. Constructing harmonious society affords an opportunity to better develop CSR in China, and fulfilling CSR is one of the effective methods to constructing harmonious society too. There are close relations between constructing harmonious society and fulfilling CSR .In order to better develop CSR in China, it is not only corporations to do themselves, but also need governments, society and NGO/NPO work together.Firstly, corporations should study international advanced experiences, and establish and fulfilling CSR strategy. CSR has become the serious challenge that Chinese corporations face global competition. It is very important that corporations strengthen the consciousness of CSR and really fulfill CSR. Chinese corporations actively absorb experiences from international advanced corporations, and successfully make the responsibility of society, environment and stockholders become the part of the process of management, the developments of corporations can benefit public, environment and whole society, and finally realize the sustainable development.Secondly, Government should play a proper role in fulfilling CSR. In order to form the criterion and action of CSR, It is not enough that only depend on corporate positivity. Government is one of the external impetuses, and play important role in directing corporation to fulfill CSR. CSR is the managemental ideas of corporations themselves, however, corporations develop and cooperate under some social environment. Now, there is not only a lack of the public basic, but also a lack of the impetuses of social movement in China, so government should play more important role.Thirdly, It should create a good culture condition that help fulfilling CSR. In the public culture, we should actively guide corporations to forming the idea of"corporate citizen", and connect fulfilling CSR with corporate good public image. We should negate the corporate unmoral phenomena and actions, and activate the corporate moral phenomena and actions. If we so do it, It is constructed that the good culture condition that corporations can actively fulfill CSR.Fourthly, It should actively develop NGO/NPO. When corporations fulfill CSR , most of things are done by corporations themselves, but there are some public welfare that need special NGO/NPO to do ,this is more efficiency.