{"id":12499,"date":"2014-07-07T11:29:30","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T21:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12499"},"modified":"2014-07-07T11:39:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T21:39:32","slug":"unsuccessful-protest-against-nj-ceo-at-takeda-pharma-note-weird-narratives-of-exclusionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12499","title":{"rendered":"Unsuccessful protest against instatement of NJ CEO at Takeda Pharma: Note weird narratives of exclusionism"},"content":{"rendered":"

eBooks, Books, and more from ARUDOU, Debito (click on icon):
\n\"Guidebookcover.jpg\"<\/a>\"japaneseonlyebookcovertext\"<\/a>\"Handbook<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>\"FodorsJapan2014cover\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
\n“LIKE” US on Facebook at http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/debitoorg<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/handbookimmigrants<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JapaneseOnlyTheBook<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BookInAppropriate<\/a>
\nIf you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:
\n\"Donate<\/a>
\nAll donations go towards website costs only. Thanks for your support!<\/i><\/p>\n

Hi Blog. I’m coming to this story a bit late (it was first brought up here<\/a> within comments to a different post), so my apologies — I’m running this blog on a 4-5 day cycle so I can have a life outside of cyberspace. Anyway, check this out, for the record:<\/p>\n

Japan’s largest drug maker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., last month tapped a NJ (a Frenchman by the name of Cristophe Weber) to be its next CEO. This occasioned protests by the founding Takeda family and dissident shareholders, because hiring a NJ to be its leader would allegedly be abhorrent.<\/p>\n

Relativism first: We’ve of course had protests and government interventions in other countries when foreigners buy up a strategically-important company. (Let me date myself: I remember the Westland helicopters scandal<\/a> when I was living in England back in the 1980s!) So business xenophobia is not unique to Japan, of course.<\/p>\n

But check out the narratives of justification for the exclusionism being proffered with straight faces:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A NJ CEO of a Japanese company would be “bad for the morale of Japanese employees”. (Why?)<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n
  2. A NJ CEO would necessarily result in “technological transfer overseas” (i.e., NJ are untrustworthy).<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n
  3. This would mean “finances or research and development would be entrusted to NJ” (Would it? This is an unaccountable dictatorship? This is not an issue of NJ-dom: Remember the corruption of the Olympus case<\/a>, and they were all Japanese at the helm — until a NJ became the whistleblower.)<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n
  4. A NJ CEO is tantamount to a hostile “takeover by foreign capital” (again, those trust issues).<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n
  5. This particular NJ is unknowledgable of Japan’s health care industry of the “traditions and corporate culture” of Takeda (i.e., NJ are ignorant about Japan and Japan’s permutations of industry).<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Imagine those arguments being made if a Japanese helmed an overseas company (we already had a Japanese in 2009 placed at the helm of, for example, the Japan Society in New York <\/a>— an organization founded in 1907 by powerful Americans to explore Japanese society<\/a>). Accusations of racism would probably\u00a0fly. But in Japan, not so much. These knee-jerk exclusionary discourses are that hegemonic.<\/p>\n

    Anyway, the exclusionists (who only hold 1-2% of total shares, so they’re basically soukaiya<\/a><\/em>) did not win out, and Weber became CEO. Nyah. Some\u00a0referential articles about the Takeda Pharma Case follow. Dr. ARUDOU Debito<\/p>\n

    \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

    Takeda family protests putting foreigner at drug maker\u2019s helm
    \nJune 22, 2014 The Yomiuri Shimbun
    \n    http:\/\/the-japan-news.com\/news\/article\/0001369207<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    The founding family of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., the nation\u2019s largest drug manufacturer, is in revolt against the management\u2019s plan to install a Frenchman as the company\u2019s first foreign president.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    The firm\u2019s former executives are joining the founding family to thwart a plan to appoint Christophe Weber, 47, president at a shareholders meeting on Friday. But there is little possibility the decision will be reversed. The revolt indicates a deep-rooted aversion among some Japanese toward foreigners assuming top corporate posts.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Weber was headhunted from major British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    As a result of its repeated acquisition of huge foreign makers, non-Japanese account for two-thirds of Takeda\u2019s employees. The installation of Weber as president and chief operating officer of the 230-year-old company is seen as a symbol of the firm\u2019s expectations for his international perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    About 110 people comprising members of the founding family and the firm\u2019s former executives in April submitted a jointly signed letter of protest to the company. They warned:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2014If Weber becomes president and Takeda is acquired by a major foreign firm, Takeda\u2019s superior drug-making technologies may be lost if transferred overseas.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2014There is a feared brain drain of Takeda\u2019s researchers, as this could lead to the firm making the same mistakes as major Japanese electrical appliance manufacturers.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Judging Weber\u2019s appointment as president as tantamount to a \u201ctakeover by foreign capital,\u201d they stressed that they would never allow finances or research and development to be entrusted to a non-Japanese.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Comparing a foreign president to a takeover by a foreign capital may very well be a leap of logic. Those who submitted the letter of protest hold a mere 1 percent to 2 percent of total shares.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    One of the Takeda founding family members, who signed the letter, said: \u201cWeber does not know anything about the Japanese health care industry. He does not know about the tradition and [corporate] culture of Takeda Pharmaceutical, either. It is absurd to install such a person as president.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    As a reason for Weber\u2019s appointment, Takeda Pharmaceutical said: \u201cIt was a result of screening candidates from both inside and outside the company with an eye to fairness. Employees will be able to learn a great deal from working under his leadership, as he has been active in global business.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    The company declined to comment on the specific points made in the letter of protest, referring only to the upcoming shareholders meeting.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Takeda Pharmaceutical was established in 1781 in Osaka as a brokerage firm for crude drugs. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Takeda began importing Western drugs ahead of domestic competitors.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    The current president, Yasuchika Hasegawa, took over the post in 2003 from Kunio Takeda, a descendent of the founding family. Hasegawa has promoted globalization of the company\u2019s operations by acquiring foreign companies and headhunting non-Japanese from rival firms to appoint them to executive posts.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

    Interview: New Takeda President Sees Developing Talent as Priority
    \nBy ERIC PFANNER and KANA INAGAKI
    \nThe Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2014
    \n    http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/japanrealtime\/2014\/07\/01\/interview-new-takeda-president-sees-developing-talent-as-priority\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    PHOTO: Christophe Weber, president and chief operating officer of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on April 2, 2014.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Days after shareholders of Japan\u2019s largest drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., approved the company\u2019s first foreign president, the company said it was moving to develop internal talent so it wouldn\u2019t necessarily have to look outside its ranks for a successor the next time around.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    The new president, Christophe Weber, who is French, said Tuesday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that talent development and retention was one of 10 management priorities he and a team of Takeda executives had identified for the coming months. Mr. Weber\u2019s appointment had raised concerns that Takeda lacked managers with the skills to oversee the company\u2019s international expansion.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    The news followed a stormy annual meeting last week, where a group of more than 100 shareholders questioned Takeda\u2019s globalization strategy, which has included acquisitions of drugmakers like Nycomed of Switzerland and Millennium Pharamaceuticals of the United States. The appointment of foreign managers like Mr. Weber was bad for the morale of Japanese employees, the dissidents said.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Shareholders overrode those concerns by an overwhelming margin in a vote that Mr. Weber and Yasuchika Hasegawa, the company\u2019s chief executive, described as an endorsement of Takeda\u2019s globalization strategy. While many Japanese companies have been moving to expand internationally as the domestic market stagnates, few have taken the radical step \u2014 for a Japanese company \u2014 of hiring foreign top executives.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cThe globalization of Takeda is good for Japanese employees and it is good for Japan,\u201d Mr. Weber said. \u201cI hope that we\u2019ll have my own internal successor as well.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Mr. Weber, who joined the company in April, said he had spent his first three months listening to Takeda employees\u2019 concerns and planned to announce a strategy by the end of the year.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cThere is a certain fear of the unknown,\u201d he said. \u201cMy hope is that they will see that what we\u2019re doing is good for everybody, especially for Japanese employees.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Mr. Weber is joining Takeda at a sensitive time for pharmaceutical companies in Japan, amid heightened regulatory scrutiny on ethical issues.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Prosecutors in Tokyo said Tuesday they had charged the Japanese unit of Novartis AG with altering research data to make a blood pressure drug, Diovan, appear more effective than competing products. Novartis said it would review the charges and that it had taken steps to improve oversight in Japan.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Takeda, too, has faced scrutiny of its drug promotions, and in March admitted to using \u201cinappropriate expressions\u201d in ads for a hypertension medicine, Blopress, after questions were raised about the accuracy of a graph.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cI think our case is quite different from the Novartis case,\u201d Mr. Hasegawa said, adding that the company had put in place measures to improve oversight.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cThe challenge is always how are we sure that 100% of our employees have the same understanding\u201d of the company\u2019s values, Mr. Weber said.<\/strong><\/em>
    \nENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Japan’s largest drug maker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., last month tapped a NJ (a Frenchman by the name of Cristophe Weber) to be its next CEO. This occasioned protests by the founding Takeda family and dissident shareholders, because hiring a NJ to be its leader would allegedly be abhorrent.<\/p>\n

    Relativism first: We’ve of course had protests and government interventions in other countries when foreigners buy up a strategically-important company. (Let me date myself: I remember the Westland helicopters scandal when I was living in England back in the 1980s!) So business xenophobia is not unique to Japan, of course.<\/p>\n

    But check out the narratives of justification for the exclusionism being proffered with straight faces:<\/p>\n

    A NJ CEO of a Japanese company would be “bad for the morale of Japanese employees”. (Why?)
    \nA NJ CEO would necessarily result in “technological transfer overseas” (i.e., NJ are untrustworthy).
    \nThis would mean “finances or research and development would be entrusted to NJ” (Would it? This is an unaccountable dictatorship? This is not an issue of NJ-dom: Remember the corruption of the Olympus case, and they were all Japanese at the helm — until a NJ became the whistleblower.)
    \nA NJ CEO is tantamount to a hostile “takeover by foreign capital” (again, those trust issues).
    \nThis particular NJ is unknowledgable of Japan’s health care industry of the “traditions and corporate culture” of Takeda (i.e., NJ are ignorant about Japan and Japan’s permutations of industry).<\/p>\n

    Imagine those arguments being made if a Japanese helmed an overseas company (we already had a Japanese in 2009 placed at the helm of, for example, the Japan Society in New York — an organization founded in 1907 by powerful Americans to explore Japanese society). Accusations of racism would probably fly. But in Japan, not so much. These knee-jerk exclusionary discourses are that hegemonic.<\/p>\n

    Anyway, the exclusionists (who only hold 1-2% of total shares, so they’re basically soukaiya) did not win out, and Weber became CEO. Nyah. Some referential articles about the Takeda Pharma Case follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,43,22,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pinprick-protests","category-bad-business-practices","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}