arise between the corporation and the community. For example, if Hitachi Ltd. alone get on well in Hitachi City, or Toyota Motor Corp. alone earns profits in Toyota City, the community will only face corporate egotism. Then, a firm evolves into a corporation that considers a whole community, such as Hitachi City and Toyota City, from a corporation that only respects the relationship between labor and management. In short, stakeholders have expanded to such an extent that the firm considers the interests of the whole corporate town.
However, even if only the city, for example, Hitachi or Toyota, get on well, friction may arise between the city and other parts of the region. Therefore, corporate activities will be changed or expanded by establishing plants, so that the business will benefit the society, and eventually the entire nation. Thus, stakeholders will be changed and expanded. Let me discuss this from a different point of view. Managers of Japanese firms refer to their companies as workers' company, employees' company, or our company" at a general meeting of stockholders. On the other hand, their American counterparts refer to "your company" at a general meeting of stockholders, since stockholders are the most important stakeholders.
At any rate, even if a corporation considers the whole community where it is located, it will face friction with foreign countries at the next stage, as long as the firm attention is only focus on Japan.
For example, when Japanese electrical equipment manufacturers found a market in Europe, Philips of Holland got so angry that trade conflicts developed. (We have Ambassador Van Agt here today.) The conflicts led to a series of round-table conferences of business people from the U.S., Europe and Japan, that I happened to be involved in. What I am saying is that a corporation that only considers the interests of its own region, Japan, or stakeholders will face conflicts anyway. By advancing into Europe or the U.S. and naturalizing there, Japanese firms have solved the conflicts. Unless a company considers the whole world as its stakeholders, conflicts seem inevitable. As far as corporate activity is concerned, companies are forced to operate their business, based on such considerations.
Stakeholders related to a society seem to have undergone a similar processes. For example. we often call ourselves consumers. After much thought, however, we realize that being an elector is another aspect of our relationship to society, in fact. Of course, being a stockholder is also one factor of stakeholders related to a society. So is a taxpayer. In other words, stakeholders represent how a person is relating to society, or whether
