The focal point of the paper is to evaluate and analyze the causes of the societal effects of corporate restructuring that took place in Japan in the 1990s. For this purpose, the two most important papers that would be helpful would be Jennifer Hirsch’s Culture, Gender, and Work in Japan: A Case Study of a Woman in Management and Ahmadjian’s A Clash of Capitalisms: Foreign Shareholders and Corporate Restructuring in 1990s Japan. The first article looks into the parameters of Keiko, a culturally different female manager in Japan who was trained in the US and the other one looks into the globalization scenario that induced the cultural change. By both articles, it is assumed that the fundamental social change was due to globalization.
Globalization is a big word today and one that has changed the way we look at and understand things around us. What is globalization? What do we understand by this word? Globalization is simply the predisposition of the economy through business, knowledge through technology, and thought through philosophy to spread globally. Globalization can also mean the process by which this happens. This term is almost synonymous with the intertwining of markets and economies without any consideration for physical borders or legal restraints. In the context of Japan, it can be stated, “In the early 1990s, increasing globalization of capital began to undermine the very foundations of the stakeholder systems”. (Ahmadjian, 452)
Globalization indeed means the broadening of global linkages, while also affecting the social and cultural dimensions of the global society, hence propagating one-world citizenship, which has one economy, one culture, and one social order.
Ecumenically globalization’s definition would be complete with the above classifications. However, there are many inroads in the understanding of the term. This is the process with which the poor countries can think of modernization and global competition, enhanced living standards, and work opportunities; on the other hand, this very same process is the one, which can destroy economies by the sudden influx of foreign capital, can destroy marginalized workers livelihood and destabilize national banks. Hence, globalization is like a coin – with two very separate sides.
This influenced the cultural differences and “This situation (of Keiko) provides a good place to begin to think about the types of social and inner conflicts that may arise as an increasing number of people find themselves involved in and affected by more than one culture, and as the global economy comes to affect, and alter, more people’s lives.” (Hirsch, 266) Here one should be able to observe the interplay between the global social activities and the local ones. It is imperative to understand that globalization is canalized through the basic political and economical fiber of the nations at large individually first and then collectively. The doggedness of the local cultural and societal pull should not be ignored in the face of globalization.
In conclusion, it can be stated that this cultural and social affects gender in each aspect of a woman’s life, health, economy, decision-making, education, and politics. Each one of these aspects has been touched by globalization. One cannot say really whether its impact is negative or positive since it has influenced different strata differently. While promoting the cause and identity in one, it crushed the same aspects in the other.
Works Cited
Ahmadjian, Christina L and Robbins, Gregory E; A Clash of Capitalisms: Foreign Shareholders and Corporate Restructuring in 1990s Japan; American Sociological Review, Vol. 70, No. 3, pp. 451-471; American Sociological Association. (2005).
Hirsch, Jennifer L. Culture, Gender, and Work in Japan: A Case Study of a Woman in Management; Ethos 28(2):248-269. Blackwell Publishing & American Anthropological Association; 2000.