Social context of Asian business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Social context of Asian business - Essay Example This essay argues that Japanese business behaviour is largely influenced by four major forces, namely, sense of belonging, loyalty, perfection, and time. Japanese businesses can be depicted as big clans or extended families. The fact that approximately 30% of the total number of employees of major companies acquired their jobs through their personal networks reveals the significance of personal connections and referrals before employment (Hein, 2013, 48). Usually a business organisation hires apprentices referred by a university teacher or another, or by a higher-ranking employee. Khalid Mehtabdin (1986 as cited in Alston, 2005, 1) observed that the person who brought a prospective recruit to the company usually becomes the permanent guide of that recruit and is thus answerable to his/her actions or performance throughout his/her career. The higher-ranking guide trains the new recruit to observe ‘appropriate behaviour’ (Alston, 2005, 1). Employees do not choose an employer due to the appeal of a compensation package or a particular position. Employees are requested to become part of the company in general and they are not employed for a particular group of duties. The initial period of employment are devoted to the process of discovering where the employee can most productively or efficiently be positioned and where s/he will be the most successful or beneficial for the company (Hein, 2013). Hence, employees become a part of a corporate ‘family’. Regular task rotations and OJTs enhance the employee’s abilities and reveal where s/he should be positioned in the corporation, though individual or personal reasons are taken into consideration to a certain extent (Goldman, 1994). In Japan, the person is encouraged to adjust to the group instead of the other way around. The previous head of the Idemitsu Petroleum Company, Ishida, explained this image of the business organisation as family (Alston,