"Transcending National Identity: Foreign Employees and Organizational Management in Corporate Japan" by Eric Walton Clemons

Eric Walton Clemons

Deposited 1999

Abstract
This work examines forms of social membership and exclusion in Japan's largest financial service firms. My findings are based on interviews, ethnographic observation, and survey data with Japanese managers, regular employees, and foreign white-collar co-workers. The study is distinguished from earlier works on foreigners in the corporation in that it draws from major social theories on identity construction (namely nation, race, and ethnicity) to explore the social and cultural consequences of melding of Japanese and foreign employees into an organization.

In Chapter Two I show how notions of Japanese uniqueness structure a nationalization of division of labor in the firm based on management perceptions of the abilities and contributions of foreign employees. Chapter Three is a critique of nation and nationalism. I examine the theoretical and practical implications of nation, race, and ethnicity and argue that the ideal of a collective national identity in Japan is based on modern-day notions of a 'Japanese race.' I problematize the concept of race in Japan to critique nation, race, and ethnicity as malleable (at times competing and other times eliding) theoretical and practical constructs of identity formation that inform a Japanese sense of self. I show that race and ethnicity cannot be treated as tangential aspects of Japanese social consciousness that can be neatly dissected and separated from Japanese ideas about nation. Yet, scholars of Japanese organizations have not explored the concepts and their effects on organizational management and employee relations in the firm.

In Chapter Four I contrast public concern over growing numbers of blue-collar migrant laborers with overwhelmingly positive support for the increasing number of white-collar foreigners in Japanese companies. Chapter Five shows how the 'firm as family' metaphor strengthens Japanese employees' commitment for inclusion in the national community. The final chapter considers larger socio-political, economic, and cultural effects of foreign professionals in the firm and Japanese society.