RIEB, Kobe University

RIEB Seminar

Date&Time	Monday, May 16, 2011, 2:00pm-
Place	Seminar Room at RIEB (Kanematsu Memorial Hall 1st Floor)
Intended Audience	Faculty, Graduate Students, Undergraduates, and Managers for Technology and Product Development at Manufacturers
Language	English
Note	Copies of the paper will be available at Office of Promoting Research Collaboration.

2:00pm-

Speaker	Silke BUSTAMANTE
Affiliation	Department of Cooperative Studies Business • Technology, Berlin School of Economics and Law
Topic	CSR expectations of graduates in Japan and Germany and consequences for CSR policy of companies
Abstract	Purpose & outline The objective of the research is to analyze and explain cultural and gender specific differences in expectations of Japanese and German graduates with respect to employee related measures of corporate responsibility order to draw conclusions for CSR and HR policy of companies. Building on the notion of CSR as a stakeholder oriented and culturally sensitive concept, in a first step, the different institutional and cultural context of CSR in Japan and Germany will be shortly described. In a second step the results of a survey of 1300 Japanese and German MBA as well as Bachelor students with practical experience will be presented. Students were asked to evaluate the importance of different work related aspects for the choice of their workplace, amongst them aspects of employee related corporate responsibility such as diversity, support of working family members, work-life balance, job security, social benefits and other. Also, they had to choose statements referring to their professional objectives and general ideas about working conditions. Based on the findings on the general institutional and cultural framework of CSR the results will be interpreted and explained. Finally consequences for employee related CSR strategies of companies with activities in Germany and Japan are derived and confronted with the actual situation of employee related CSR in both countries. Background The concept of corporate social responsibility is intensively discussed in Germany but also increasingly in Japan, Korea, China and other Asian countries. Among the "Top global 100 sustainable companies" in 2008 were 13 Japanese and 6 German companies. 2003 Japan was the country with the highest disposition for reporting about CSR activities (Tanimoto (2005), S. 5). But the focus of CSR activities seem to vary in the two countries: An analysis of CSR reports from the year 2005 comes to the conclusion, that Japanese reports focus on ecological aspects, whereas social aspects seem to be of rather low importance. The term "Corporate Citizenship" is used considerably less in Japanese reports compared with European ones (Tanimoto 2005, S.14). This observation is in accordance with different analysis about the Japanese employment market and the employee related CSR activities of companies (Tateisi 2008, OECD 2008, Suzuki et. al. 2008). Taking into account similar demographic developments in both countries and the increasing importance of recruiting and committing employees and securing the potential of qualified personnel sustainably, these differences may be explained with a different understanding of employee-related responsibility, a lacking consciousness of Japanese companies or different expectations of graduates with respect to employee related responsibility. The present paper might be a first step to shed some light on the reasons of the different social performance of Japanese and German companies.