It is generally believed in business and academic circles that the success of Japan in 1950s and 1970s originated from Japanese corporate culture, which mainly included internal teamwork spirit, innovative spirit and honesty in foreign exchanges. The unity and cooperation of Japanese employees, sharing weal and woe, and the spirit of sharing weal and woe, regardless of personal gains and losses, and being willing to contribute to the enterprise and the team are amazing. In contact with the outside world, the integrity of Japanese enterprises is recognized by the world. Honesty comes from the responsibility of individuals in the team to the enterprise and society, and there is a deep cultural origin behind Japanese corporate culture.

Introduction of Confucian culture

The introduction of Confucianism into Japan began in the legal era (Nara and Heian periods in the 7th century), and a large number of classics flowed into Japan with the introduction of History of Sui Dynasty. In addition, foreign students and monks studying abroad returned to China after studying, and celebrities and monks from Chinese mainland went to the East. The five ethics and five permanents of Confucianism (the relationship between father and son, the meaning of monarch and minister, the separation of husband and wife, the order of brothers and sisters, and the letter of friends) are ethics, loyalty, filial piety and honesty. Some experts say that it is no exaggeration to say that the center of Japanese culture is Confucian culture, and the ideological basis of Japanese Bushido spirit is Japanese Confucianism.

bushido

Bushido is understood as the "Tao" that samurai must abide by in their career and daily life. Nitobe Inazo believes that the origin of Bushido comes from three aspects: Buddhism-giving Bushido a calm consciousness of obeying fate, calmly treating necessity and quietly obeying it; Shinto-teaching samurai absolute loyalty to the monarch (superior), pious respect for ancestors and unconditional filial piety to parents, including patriotism and loyalty in the Japanese national spirit; Confucianism, mainly the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, is the richest source of moral education of Bushido. Confucius and Mencius' philosophical thoughts of calmness, kindness and wisdom provide professional ethics for samurai as the ruling class, and the five ethics of monarch, minister, father and son, husband and wife, brother and friend provide them with basic moral standards in daily life.

Bushido spirit can be simply summarized as: righteousness, courage, benevolence, courtesy, honesty, reputation, loyalty and self-denial. Righteousness is the strictest teaching in the samurai code, and despicable behavior and cunning behavior are the most taboo and disdainful of samurai; Courage is the spirit of courage and perseverance, such as fortitude, perseverance, courage, composure and courage. Benevolence is compassion, and love, tolerance, sympathy and compassion are the noblest things in the human spirit; Courtesy means being diligent and solemn when receiving people and things; Honesty is loyalty and honesty, which is higher than courtesy; Fame contains the dignity of personality and a clear sense of value, and it is "an immortal part of mankind"; Loyalty is obedience and loyalty to the world, which is very important.

Bushido, originally regarded as the "Tao" of the samurai class, spread and spread through various channels, and also provided moral standards for all citizens. Although civilians may not reach the height of samurai, the "harmony soul" centered on it has become the embodiment of Japanese national spirit. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan became strong because of the support of "harmony with foreign talents". With the development and change of society, samurai and bushido have become history, like scattered cherry blossoms, but this spirit still exists, which has become one of the driving forces of Japan's reform and the spiritual foundation of modern Japanese corporate culture and integrity.

The Extension of Bushido Spirit

Although Bushido spirit became the foundation of Japanese national spirit from top to bottom, it was Ishida Meiyan in the middle of Edo and ninomiya sontoku in the later period that popularized this spirit and thought.

After the middle period of Edo, with the development of commercial capital, the strength of citizens engaged in commercial activities became stronger and stronger. Meiyan Ishida (1685 ~ 1744), a thinker who had a great influence on the real life of businessmen, founded the philosophy of citizens' life-psychology. The foundation of mind science is sexology, that is, Zhu Cheng Confucianism. How does Meiyan Ishida transform the theory of mind into Machimura's practical philosophy? He first affirmed the existence significance of businessmen and commerce. While affirming the identity of scholars, farmers and businessmen, he also advocated that although there are differences in identity, their posts are equal. In other words, businessmen should not only be satisfied with their social status, but also correctly understand the significance of their profession. Through explanation and demonstration, he combined his cosmology of the unity of man and nature with the idea of affirming business in the special experience world.

Mei Yan believes that integrity (honesty for profit) and frugality are the ways of businessmen. Illegal profit is a businessman's misconduct and a kind of evil virtue. It is a legitimate interest to take advantage of the changes in the market at that time in an appropriate way. Honesty is not only manifested in the commodity exchange relationship, but also in the possession relationship. "My things are my things, people's things are people's things. Borrowed things should be recovered, borrowed things should be returned, and there is no selfishness. " In addition, in interpersonal relationships, "integrity, the world is one, and the world is like brothers." In this way, he regards honesty as the basis of interpersonal relationship and believes that honesty is the basic condition for doing business. In Mei Yan, frugality has a deeper meaning than economy, and it is regarded as a basic morality. It is not only personal housekeeping morality, but also social governance morality. Thrift is not stingy, but "everything follows the law", that is, according to the characteristics and functions of things, to maximize their utility.

After the death of Meiyan Ishida, with the efforts of his disciples, the movement of Mind Learning quickly spread to kanto region with Edo (now Tokyo) as the center. In addition to Kyushu, there are about 200 societies in China that teach Mei's core research. Through the educational activities of various factions, it has given great enlightenment to citizens, farmers, warriors and other social strata, and established an ethical concept with integrity and frugality as the main moral items. Businessmen conduct legitimate business activities in the way of businessmen, which not only creates favorable conditions for the economic development in the Edo period of Japan and the economic transformation after Meiji, but also sets economic ethics standards for modern commercial enterprises. After careful observation, we will find that Japanese modern business enterprise culture still inherits Mei Yan's "Tao".

After Mei Yan, there appeared a thinker who rewarded virtue-Nimiya Shengde (formerly known as Ninomiya Kinjiro, 1787 ~ 1856). He was a Japanese educator, agronomist and a native Japanese thinker. His thought of repaying virtue was recognized and popularized in Meiji period, which had a great influence on the ideological formation of ordinary people. Nobuyoshi Ergong's thought of repaying kindness is specifically the outlook on life of diligence and forbearance. As the name implies, thrift is thrift, thrift is thrift, and concession is concession. His outlook on life is a belief formed by combining the teachings of Confucianism, Shinto and Buddhism and his experiences in his youth. Like Bushido spirit and Mei's theory of mind, it is based on Confucianism, but it is different from the traditional Zhu's theory that heaven is benevolence and people should abide by it. Nishimiya Shinde distinguishes heaven from human beings and advocates the independence of human nature based on food, clothing, housing and transportation. In other people's behavior thought, it embodies the idea of paying equal attention to industry and agriculture and attaching importance to practice and economic development in capitalist economy. The two pillars of Ergong's spirit of extending virtue and repaying virtue are "morality" and "economy". He said that "the economy that forgets morality is evil, and the morality that forgets economy is empty talk". Later, Shibusawa Eiichi, the father of Japanese capitalist economy, put forward the business philosophy of "The Analects of Confucius plus abacus calculation", which was completely consistent with the business philosophy of Ergong Shengde.

Nishimiya Matsude is an agronomist, but his eyes are not limited to the village, but projected to the whole country and society. Diligence is a way of life that human beings should advocate. No matter what occupation you are engaged in, you need to work hard. Diligence is kindness born in the world. For the fruits of hard work, we should be thrifty, but not passive. On the contrary, we should advocate increasing social wealth through appropriate consumption and active labor. The ultimate goal of accumulating and increasing social wealth is to repay kindness. He also believes that there is no status difference between occupations, but the division of labor is different. People engaged in different occupations should be conscientious, stick to the end and teach people to have the professionalism of loving their jobs. For business, he believes that the purpose of business is to circulate goods and provide convenience for people's lives. Like Ishida Meiyan, he also stressed that he should obey the "commercial road". "Business ethics" means treating business with honesty and integrity, and combining economy with morality.

During the Meiji period, Nobuyuki Ergong's thought of repaying kindness adapted to the development of society and became a universal spirit of repaying kindness. 1905 (in the thirty-eighth year of Meiji), the newspaper "Four People" was established to study and publicize the idea of repaying kindness. 19 12 (the first year of Taisho) was changed to "Central Newspaper Agency". During this period, a large number of articles and publications on the idea of reporting morality were published, which had a great influence on the education of Japanese nationals and the improvement of internal affairs. The thought of repaying morality and its professional ethics not only adapted to the social structure at that time and stabilized the social order, but also conformed to the trend of social development and encouraged the development of industry and commerce. These ideas are still universally applicable in Japanese business and business circles today.

The significance of cultural origin

Whether it is Bushido spirit, Ishida Meiyan's psychology or ninomiya sontoku's thought of repaying virtue, its root is actually to absorb and carry forward the essence of Confucian thought and culture. Today, although the corporate cultures of Kyocera, Matsushita and other famous Japanese enterprises have different characteristics, they are basically related to traditional Confucianism, and the teachings of Shinto have been integrated and developed, which also proves that traditional oriental culture is still very vital in modern society.

The rise of Japan has attracted the attention of eastern and western academic circles. In addition, many social and ecological problems brought about by the development of western industrialization have become increasingly prominent, and many scholars have been studying how to build corporate culture on the basis of eastern traditional culture and promote the development of modern society and economy.

We can find the fact that well-known enterprises with international influence and enduring have their own characteristic corporate culture, and excellent corporate culture can unite the interior and lead the benign development of enterprises. At the same time, in the modern society where people's ability to recognize and judge social problems is constantly improving, the establishment of honest corporate culture also plays a decisive role in the development of enterprises. How to make use of our traditional cultural advantages to establish our own corporate culture and constantly improve and develop it? We can learn from the success of some Japanese enterprises, and at the same time, of course, we should pay attention to building a corporate culture with our own characteristics in order to achieve good and orderly development.

Analysis on the Characteristics of Japanese Corporate Culture

Japan is called the oriental myth. In 2005, its GDP ranked second in the world and its comprehensive national strength ranked fourth in the world. Among the top 500 enterprises in the world in 2005, Japan occupied 8 1. How did Japan, a defeated country after World War II, become a world economic power and a technological power in just forty or fifty years? This is a question discussed by many countries in the 20th century. The development of enterprises is an important embodiment of the national economy. Therefore, it is necessary for us to know about Japanese enterprises, and the development of enterprises is closely related to the cultural concept of enterprises, so let's learn about the cultural characteristics of Japanese enterprises.

Let's learn more about the cultural characteristics of Japanese enterprises from several representative enterprises in Japan.

First of all, Panasonic (Panasonic)

Kōnosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic, established his own business philosophy at the beginning of his business. In an interview with reporters, Kōnosuke Matsushita once bluntly said: "Making money is the mission of enterprises, and the purpose of businessmen is to make profits". But at the same time, he declared that "the responsibility to contribute to society is the primary requirement of business", and Panasonic believed that the primary ideal of business should be to contribute to society. It is this lofty belief that supports Panasonic today. We know that the most powerful strength comes from the firm belief in people's hearts.

"Water management philosophy" is the most basic management philosophy of Matsushita Electric Company, which is equivalent to the general program in the Constitution. His business belief lies in this: "If everything is like tap water, you can take it at will, then the social situation will be completely changed. My task is to make as many electrical appliances as tap water, which is my production task. Although it is not easy to do in practice, I will try my best to reduce the price of goods to the cheapest level. " The purpose of general production is nothing more than enriching the necessities of people's daily life to enrich the content of life. This is also my greatest wish in my life. "Let electrical appliances become a necessity in people's lives.

In fact, not only Panasonic but also Toyota. Sony, Honda, Fujitsu, Canon and other well-known Japanese enterprises have similar business philosophy: abide by the spirit of domestic and foreign laws and regulations, and strive to become corporate citizens trusted by the international community through open and fair corporate activities. Abide by the cultures and customs of various countries and regions, and make contributions to local economic construction and social development through enterprise activities rooted in local society.

From these characteristics, we can easily see the first characteristic of Japanese corporate culture-actively advocating the unity of corporate mission and social responsibility, and cultivating a harmonious cultural environment and atmosphere for corporate development.

Second, SONY Corporation (Sony)

Our first impression of this company must be that it is one of the enterprises with the highest electronic technology content in Asia and even the world. Almost everyone of us has bought his products. Sony has its own unique marketing concept-'Don't do what customers want, do what can help customers'. This concept of creating demand is Sony's innovation in marketing. As a company whose main business is electronic products, product innovation is its life. Of course, Sony has not only achieved it, but also achieved the forefront of the world.

Similarly, this innovative spirit is also reflected in all walks of life in Japan. Of course, this is inseparable from the relevant policies of the Japanese government, especially in the national financial allocation for technology research and development. According to statistics, the proportion of Japan's innovation research funds in GDP has surpassed that of the United States, and it has now reached about 3%. Among them, the expenses for technology and product innovation only account for about 1/3, and most of the expenses are used for the transformation and improvement of existing products and technologies. This also shows an attitude of innovation in Japan: for any product, we must dig out its maximum value, and in a certain field, we will never give up until we become the best enterprise in this field. Strong investment in science and technology is the basic guarantee for developing key technologies.

From these facts, we get the second characteristic of Japanese corporate culture-trying to unify cultural inheritance and cultural innovation, and cultivating cultural forces that support enterprises to achieve sustainable development.

Third, TOYOTA.

We know that Toyota entered the American market in the last century by two sharp tools-price, quality and low fuel consumption. These three magic weapons have brought great trouble to GM and Ford in the United States. At the same time, in the 2 1 century, the resource problem has become a worldwide topic, and Toyota has not missed it. Therefore, Akio Toyoda believes that the development of reliable and durable vehicles with high fuel consumption is a crucial issue for the Japanese automobile industry. Therefore, after the establishment of the new company, he immediately devoted all his energy to the automotive technology innovation in research and development.

Toyota took 6% of annual sales as the key research fund, set up a huge R&D team of10.2 million people, and started the invention and creation of "green" cars. After five years of unremitting efforts and repeated trial production, Toyota launched the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle-the precursor. It consumes at least twice the average mileage per liter of gasoline as ordinary gasoline vehicles, but the pollutants are reduced by 90%. The development of this new product has played a great role in saving energy.

This sense of economy is also closely related to Japan's history and geography. Japan is an island country with an area of 377,800 square kilometers, located on the west side of the Pacific Ocean, across the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Korean Strait and the Sea of Japan, facing China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia. Mineral resources are poor, except for a small amount of coal and zinc, most of them rely on imports. Japan is an island country with a small land and few things, which has cultivated the Japanese concept of national thrift. "Don't waste things" is the mantra of many Japanese people, which deeply affects Japanese corporate culture. Japanese traditional virtue of diligence and thrift, among developed countries, Japan's national savings rate has always been the highest.

Japan first put forward the concept of zero inventory, which was initially considered impossible by western scholars, but later proved to be feasible. Japanese enterprises maximize the use of resources and achieve the goal of low cost through mass production and pre-inspection of products.

So the third aspect of Japanese corporate culture-low cost consciousness/saving consciousness.

Fourth, others.

Since1990s, Japan's bubble economy has burst and its economy is in a period of slow growth. Even in the face of various difficulties, Japanese enterprises still adhere to the "annual merit system" distribution model, maintaining the stability of the workforce and enhancing the cohesion of enterprises.

Toyota pays attention to the cultivation of talents, which is also an important aspect of its success. The corporate mission it advocates is "creating things to educate people" and the business philosophy is "creating things to educate people first, putting ancestors before things". Toyota attaches no less importance to personnel training than to product development. The company cultivates talents by recruiting, training, using, evaluating, encouraging, promoting and providing opportunities to participate in practice, creating a strong learning atmosphere and creating a situation in which talents come forth in large numbers.

The fourth aspect of Japanese corporate culture characteristics-humanism "people-oriented" and "enterprise-oriented"

At the sight of being made in Japan, all Japanese products have the same feeling that the quality is guaranteed. Although this is actually an irrational consumption view, it is obvious that this view is wrong. Take Mitsubishi Motors as an example last year. Due to negligence in design, Mitsubishi Motors recovered the same batch of products due to brake failure. But it also shows that the overall image design of Japanese enterprises has achieved great success.

Japanese companies began to operate "culture" while promoting products. First of all, we attach great importance to the promotion of products and corporate image. The enterprise has a large propaganda department, corporate culture department or image planning department. The second is to make strategic investment in culture.

The fifth characteristic of corporate culture of Japanese enterprises-unifying the promotional products and business "culture" in the daily business process.

The purpose of analyzing the corporate culture characteristics of a developed country is not to know ourselves and ourselves, but to gain something. Although Japan's management model and corporate culture are not omnipotent, we should learn from them, take their essence and discard their dross, so as to make the past serve the present and make foreign things serve China.

1, take corporate culture construction as the primary task of enterprise development and improve the consciousness of corporate culture construction.

Corporate culture is the fourth important resource besides manpower, financial resources and material resources. Chinese enterprises should regard the construction of enterprise culture as an important content to promote the preservation and appreciation of enterprise assets and improve the consciousness of building advanced enterprise culture.

2. Combine building a harmonious corporate culture atmosphere with establishing Scientific Outlook on Development and building a harmonious society.

By strengthening the consciousness of * * *, Japanese enterprises actively advocate fulfilling their social responsibilities and create a harmonious social environment and cultural atmosphere for their own development. This has profound enlightenment to the corporate culture construction of contemporary enterprises in China. At present, Chinese enterprises are faced with the difficult problem of constructing "six harmonious relationships" between enterprises and employees, employees and employees, enterprises and enterprises, enterprises and communities (society), enterprises and environment, and employees' physical and mental health. Frequent mine accidents, energy shortage and environmental pollution all indicate that the concept of harmonious corporate culture has not been established. Therefore, Chinese enterprises should pay more attention to establishing a good social image, strengthen the construction of corporate culture, constantly optimize the internal and external development environment of enterprises, and promote the harmonious development of enterprises and employees.

3. Handle the relationship between corporate image building (CI) strategy and customer satisfaction (CS) strategy to enhance corporate image.

Many enterprises in China have implemented CI strategy in the construction of corporate culture, which has effectively improved their image, but they have not paid enough attention to the construction of customer satisfaction. CS strategy has been widely implemented in Japanese enterprises. Some enterprises put forward "insight into the next demand and create new value" in their business philosophy, that is, go deep into customers' hearts, discover the needs and desires that even customers themselves have not noticed, and provide them with specific goods and services to surprise customers, thus creating new demands.

With the improvement of the marketization of Chinese enterprises, it is a trend and necessity to introduce CS strategy. At present, China enterprises should seriously study the implementation of CS strategy, choose the opportunity to introduce and widely implement this strategy, and realize the new promotion of corporate brand and image.