The Future of Fintech in the Context of the Japanese Main Bank System

This chapter contemplates the future of Fintech in the context of the Japanese main bank system with the focus on the nontechnical side of Fintech. It first explores the recent development and the current state of Fintech and examines it from the viewpoints of technology and banking for having balanced ideas. It then reviews relevant frameworks, including the theory of diffusion of innovations, as its research foundation of this study. To envisage how Fintech will be incorporated into the Japanese banking sector, it revisits the main bank system and identifies the intrinsic connection between the banking system and the existing collectivistic values as the influential attributes of the theoretical framework. A qualitative meta-synthesis shows that Fintech is likely to replace banking processes and products that are remote from the Japanese shared ways of thinking, while the MBS nature of relationship banking will remain in existence. The grounded element of the findings suggests that Japan’s strength is based on its collectivist culture, and Fintech will blend into the MBS over the course of its future development. This chapter concludes that Fintech is a supporting tool compatible with the core competencies of Japanese wealth creation, including the MBS, which supports Japanese business operations spanning worldwide

Cultural Untranslatability

This paper proposes a possible concept of \u27cultural untranslatability\u27 in translation, focusing on what it is, how important it is, and when it occurs. The paper first explores cultural concepts for understanding of culture. The second part examines Hofstede\u27s cultural dimensions and establishes an experimental definition of cultural difference. Drawing on actual translations between English and Japanese, the third part discusses the importance of the concept. Finally, it considers under what circumstances such untranslatable items are de facto culturally untranslatable, borrowing the concept of translation norms. The paper concludes that cultural untranslatability is an important, useful concept for translation between languages with a great cultural difference, and the notion of correctness peculiar to a socio-cultural context in a specific culture is the deciding factor in cultural untranslatability

Different Classification Results on the Same Loan: Evidence from Japanese Corporate Lending in the USA

This essay reports on cross-national differences within bank loan classification approaches, which determine the soundness of bank loans. It is based on 20 in-depth interviews carried out as part of an ongoing PhD research project. The essay first offers an overview of banking supervision under the Basel Accord and locates bank loan classification within the context of this global framework. Second, through analysis of a government-commissioned report available only in Japanese, the essay compares the two countries’ normative approaches to bank loan classification and qualitatively describes cross-national differences. The interview results support their report and reveal that Japanese bank loans booked in the USA are assessed differently by Japanese banks and the US banking authority. The findings suggest that regionally shared ways of thinking play an important role in the process of bank loan classification. The essay discusses why regionally shared ways of thinking differ between countries, and which side delivers the correct classification result. It concludes that the loan classification approach mirrors the respective social systems, including the regional ways of conducting businesses and the contents of education

Japanese Business Communication in the COVID Crisis: A Study of Horenso and its Implications

Horenso is a widely known concept in Japan yet under-researched system of communication specific to the nation. It refers to a continual and collaborative communication process that involves frequent status updates for consultative decision-making. This study explores its significance in the context of Japanese business and its implications that may help gain insights for future use. The aim of this research is to envisage Japanese style communication in the post-COVID era by investigating their current practice during the pandemic. This chapter will begin with a review of relevant concepts and position horenso as an attribute of the wider context of Japanese employment connected with the regional values of preference. The case examples and the subsequent discussions further develop the concept of horenso by bridging business studies, cultural studies, and Japanese studies and reveal that horenso can be perceived as part of the Japanese decision-making process in the nexus of the organizational systems. Distinguishing between culturally driven specificities and cultureless ones, this study predicts that horenso, which prefers face-to-face communication and continues to hold its importance through the pandemic, will remain in the post-pandemic era alongside the internet-based video conferencing platforms

A Conceptual Framework of Cultural Competence: A Case Study of a Japanese Multinational in a Cross-National Context

This article proposes a diagrammatic framework[1]to address the theoretical concept of cultural competence. Bridging prevalent concepts available in literature, it posits a simple yet versatile multi-level framework with two extremes to capture a spectrum of cultural specificities. Through a case study on a Japanese automobile conglomerate partly with European management, it concludes that cultural competence can be shown on a linear scale in the systematic framework. The findings advance the concept of cultural competence and the proposed model may be used as a foothold for future research possibly in any combination of cultures. This study is not to claim that different cultures are uncompromising but to consider how to reconcile them in a cross-cultural setting. [1] The original framework was presented at the 31st Annual AJBS Minneapolis Conference in 2018. This article develops it to discuss the concept of cultural competence

Cultural Accountability for Business-Practice Differences and Beyond: A Comparative Study on Bank Loan Classification Between Japan and the USA

The aim of this interdisciplinary essay is to demonstrate locally shared senses of values (“cultural values”) as the root causes of the cross-national differences in business practice between Japan and the USA; in particular bank loan classification and its value-driven consequences. For this aim, it investigates three levels of bank lending; decision-making at an individual level, bank loan classification at an organisation level and aggregate bank loans at a national level. The essay first examines the historical debate in economic anthropology, with the focus on cultural values. The second part explores research-proven differences in individualism and collectivism. The third part investigates the bank loan classification systems at an organisation level. The fourth part examines the CME-LMC distinction (Hall and Soskice 2001) as a culturally-driven dichotomy of how differently aggregate bank loans appear at a national level. The essay concludes that global frameworks need to accommodate value differences across the world

Wabi-Sabi as a Way of Life in the Japanese Employment System: Multilateral Connections, Relativity, and Duality

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept traditionally described as a type of beauty that conveys the philosophical values of imperfection, incompleteness, and impermanence. Going beyond the traditional interpretation of the concept, this chapter attempts to discover wabi-sabi as a way of life in Japanese corporate settings. This chapter first revisits the concept of wabi-sabi and the system of lifetime employment, positioning them as intrinsically linked systems. To contextualize employment practice, it examines the tool of a job description and the system of job rotation as attributes of employment practice. The findings reveal the existence of wabi-sabi as a way of life in corporate settings, demonstrate the relative nature of the wabi-sabi values, and show the duality of positive and negative attributes. The grounded findings exhibit the shared features with the traditional interpretation of wabi-sabi based on the same philosophical values. The shared features suggest that the concept of wabi-sabi can be used for relevant research beyond the fine arts

A Conceptual Framework for Managerial Analysis Under Economic Nationalism and Globalization: A Study of Japanese Automakers in the USA

This chapter qualitatively examines cross-national managerial strategies employed at the Japanese automakers in the context of economic nationalism. It proposes and tests a simple yet versatile conceptual framework by developing existing models and integrating foundational concepts available in literature. Proposed as a tool for comparative analysis on management styles, the framework has two extreme ends of a continuum to capture not only variants of the social realities but also changes of businesses as it shifts between the extremes. The findings suggest that the force of economic nationalism likely affects the Japanese automakers’ growth strategies, and the dynamics of managerial styles are company-specific under intensified globalization