On October 14, 2011, the board of the camera maker Olympus dismissed its British president, Michael Woodford. Chairman Kikukawa gave the reason: soshiki no ishi kettei o mushi shita dokudan sen’ō-teki na keiei, a dictatorial management that ignored the organization’s decision-making.
Woodford said that he had been dismissed for asking questions about past acquisitions. According to J-CAST News, he was not allowed to speak at the board meeting that removed him.
Japanese ministries and other public offices house kisha kurabu, press clubs. The encyclopedia Imidas calls them a system specific to Japan: voluntary organizations of reporters based in government offices. It notes criticism of their exclusiveness, their closed nature and their sense of privilege, and reports that the European Union called for their abolition.
In 2002, the Japan Newspaper Association revised its view of the clubs. It dropped their old description as social bodies and called them open organizations.
In professional sumo, a foreign-born wrestler must acquire Japanese nationality to become a stablemaster. Only wrestlers with Japanese nationality have the right to become an elder, toshiyori.
Stables are also limited in their foreign-born members. Since a revision of the rule in 2010, each stable may have only one wrestler of foreign birth.
Gakubatsu (学閥): a school clique. The dictionary defines it as an exclusive group formed by people from the same school or the same academic school.
In the spring 2023 examination for career-track national civil servants, the University of Tokyo had more successful candidates than any other university, 193. That was 24 fewer than the year before.
A popular saying holds that a person must live in Kyoto for ten generations to count as a Kyoto person. An essay in the journal of the Japan Society of Plasma Science and Fusion Research repeats it: “It is commonly said, Kyoto ten generations. Unless one has lived in Kyoto for ten generations, one is apparently not a Kyoto person.”
Yosomono, wakamono, bakamono: outsiders, young people and fools. The phrase is used in Japanese regional revitalization. At a regional development seminar on February 2, 2011, reported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the speaker said that the presence of outsiders, young people and fools is indispensable.
A 2014 column in the Ryūkyū Shimpō says that outsiders and young people are said to be the ones who break through a stalled situation.
Soto (外): outside. The Daijisen dictionary also defines it as people or places other than those concerned, an outsider, another person. One of its examples is kimitsu ga soto ni moreru, a secret leaks outside.
Miuchi (身内): followers of the same boss. Also, members of the same organization. A dictionary example: miuchi no fushōji o inpei suru, to cover up a scandal among one’s own.
Haenuki (生え抜き): born and bred. An HR glossary explains a haenuki employee as one hired as a new graduate, not a mid-career hire or an employee on loan from elsewhere.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs answers a common question about speaking to people outside the company. An employee may refer to a superior simply as Tanaka, or as buchō no Tanaka, the manager, Tanaka. To say Tanaka buchō, Manager Tanaka, is inappropriate, because it does not treat the manager as a member of one’s own side. In a formal setting, the employee can also say heisha no buchō, our company’s manager.
Verbs change in the same way. Inside the company, an employee says that the president osshatte imashita, using a respectful verb for “said.” To people outside, the employee says that the president mōshite orimashita, using a humble verb.
In July 1995, Daiwa Bank learned that a trader in New York had lost 1.1 billion dollars in unauthorized trading over 11 years. The United States authorities were told only on September 18. Japan’s Ministry of Finance had also kept them uninformed.
United States regulators then gave Daiwa 90 days to close or dispose of its operations in the United States.
Mura hachibu is the general term for the sanctions carried out in Japanese village society.
A popular explanation says that the word means cutting off eight of the ten kinds of social contact between households, all except fires and funerals. A Japanese encyclopedia notes that this explanation is widespread but has no basis.