Word: stringers
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...Stringer's appointment-with its implicit acknowledgment that there was no Japanese sufficiently qualified to lead the company-is evidence of how hard Japan Inc. now finds it to pull off the double act that Morita once handled so well. To an extent, the troubles of corporate Japan are a function of a long period of economic stagnation. During the boom years of the 1970s and '80s, Japan Inc.'s single-minded focus on engineering and process development-not to mention a resistance to foreign ideas-were hallmarks of the country's rapid economic progress and a source of national...
...Though he has been running Sony's U.S. operations since 1997, Stringer speaks no Japanese. And Sony's management ranks held a host of oft-mentioned Japanese heirs apparent for Idei's mantle. That Sony should have turned to a foreigner speaks worlds about how troubled the company's prospects have become. But last week's news was about much more than one man and one company. For if you wanted a symbol of Japan's astonishing rise from the ashes and defeat of World War II to its position as the second largest economy on earth-and a place...
...nationalistic lawmakers as an opportunity to reinforce Japanese culture. A subcommittee involved in the revision recently submitted proposals that recommended, for example, restoring Shinto to a privileged, state-funded religion; banning books "that have a detrimental effect on young people's upbringing"; and limiting freedom of assembly. But Stringer's appointment suggests that at least one icon of modern Japan is prepared to take the second course, and open up even more to the world...
...Stringer isn't the first foreigner to head a large Japanese company; in 1999, Carlos Ghosn, a Lebanese born in Brazil and educated in France, was appointed to the executive suite of Nissan Motor. The challenge at Sony is no less pressing than that at Nissan; when Stringer told TIME that he was "bedazzled by the problems and demands of the job," he knew whereof he spoke. For Sony's woes are well known. The company that once had a magic touch-creating not just the Walkman, but the Trinitron TV and the PlayStation too-has gone adrift...
...Stringer's task is to turn around the fortunes of one company. For corporate Japan, however, the question is whether his appointment represents a wholesale shift in boardroom thinking. Within Japan itself, Sony has always appeared a bit of a maverick: "Not a typical Japanese company," in the words of Richard Katz, editor of the Oriental Economist newsletter. Edward Lincoln, of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., and author of the book Arthritic Japan: The Slow Pace of Economic Reform, points out that Sony was the first Japanese company to list on the New York Stock Exchange...