"Deficient in commercial morality"?: Japan in global debates on business ethics in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries
In: Palgrave studies in economic history
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In: Palgrave studies in economic history
In: Palgrave studies in economic history
This enlightening text analyses the origins of Western complaints, prevalent in the late nineteenth century, that Japan was characterised at the time by exceptionally low standards of 'commercial morality', despite a major political and economic transformation. As Britain industrialised during the nineteenth century the issue of 'commercial morality' was increasingly debated. Concerns about standards of business ethics extended to other industrialising economies, such as the United States. Hunter examines the Japanese response to the charges levelled against Japan in this context, arguing that this was shaped by a pragmatic recognition that Japan had little choice but to adapt itself to Western expectations if it was to establish its position in the global economy. The controversy and criticisms, which were at least in part stimulated by fear of Japanese competition, are important in the history of thinking on business ethics, and are of relevance for todayℓ́ℓs industrialising economies as they attempt to establish themselves in international markets. Janet Hunter is Saji Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics, UK. She has published widely on the economic and social history of modern Japan, and is currently researching on concepts of ethical business practice in developing economies such as Japan, and the economic impact of the 1923 earthquake.
In: Routledge contemporary Japan series 6
In: Journal of cultural interaction in East Asia, Band 11, Heft 1, S. 37-42
ISSN: 2747-7576
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 50, Heft 1, S. 415-435
ISSN: 1469-8099
AbstractThis review article examines three monographs that make conspicuous contributions to our understanding of major earthquake disasters in Japan from the mid-nineteenth century through to 2011. They focus on different events and different time periods, and ask different questions, but raise a host of shared issues relating to the on-going importance of disaster in Japan's history over the long term. They cause us to consider how seismic disaster is explained, understood, interpreted, and actualized in people's lives, how the risks are factored in, and how people respond to both immediate crisis and longer term consequences. One recurrent issue in these volumes is the extent to which these large natural disasters have the capacity to change—and actually do change—the ways in which societies organize themselves. In some cases disaster may be perceived as opportunity, but the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that a desire to return to the previous 'normality' is a powerful impulse in people's responses to major natural disasters. The review also argues that the issue of trust lies at the core of both individual and collective responses. A lack of trust may be most conspicuous in attitudes to government and elites, but is also inherent in more everyday personal interactions and market transactions in the immediate aftermath of disaster.
In: Australian economic history review: an Asia-Pacific journal of economic, business & social history, Band 50, Heft 1, S. 80-98
ISSN: 1467-8446
Large areas of Northeast Asia experienced drought in 1939. Agricultural production in Korea decreased significantly, but the drought did not cause famine in Japan despite its dependence on rice imports from Korea. The paper analyses the impact of the 1939 drought on the markets for rice and electricity in Japan. The authorities were ill‐prepared for such a disaster but willing to use it for the purpose of covering for other problems. The drought thus accelerated the move of Japan's economic system towards a managed economy. A lower total rainfall in Japan in 1940 did not generate similar problems, suggesting that the broader political, economic, and social context is crucial to the identification of short‐term climatic fluctuations as crises.
In: The economic history review, Band 61, Heft 3, S. 761-763
ISSN: 1468-0289
In: The economic history review, Band 61, Heft 2, S. 532-533
ISSN: 1468-0289
In: The economic history review, Band 60, Heft 2, S. 435-437
ISSN: 1468-0289
In: Economica, Band 73, Heft 291, S. 550-551
ISSN: 1468-0335
In: Japan aktuell: journal of current Japanese affairs, Band 14, Heft 3, S. 82-90
ISSN: 1436-3518
World Affairs Online
In: Business history, Band 45, Heft 1, S. 151-184
ISSN: 1743-7938