Managers, Don’t Get Profit to Themselves!      

     Some companies like ‘Toyota’ and ‘Cannon’ have been making a profit, although Japan’s
economic situ ation has fallen into a state of depression. However, many managers of superior
Japanese companies will not share profit with laborers. Despite their large sum of property, they
are apt to get profit to themselves. In fact, reconstruction improved the management, but
many workers have not gotten salaries increase. It is not strange that they demand a rise in
salary in superior companies. At the same time, managers should also try to put wage increase
into effect. Although it was quite impossible for Japanese managers to do this, Nissan Motor Co.
chief Carlos Ghosn delivered a profit to labors that had overcome hardships of reconstruction.
After this, ‘Nissan’ is booming, which made the most profit at the end of this fiscal year. While
a non-Japanese manager succeeded and returned profits to workers, why can’t Japanese
mangers do the same? The reason is simple. Many Japanese managers are not as confident as
Mr. Ghosn. Most of them will not distribute companies’ profits to anyone by saying a cliche that
they should prepare for any recession attack.
     A businessman Mr. Murakami, a head of M & A Consulting, stood up irritated by the
management of a big company, Tokyo Style Co. Ltd. (a big dress company.) He was not a
worker but a great stockholder of the company. He possesses 11.9% stocks of Tokyo Style Co.
Ltd. Mr. Murakami, a great investor of the company, requested a large amount of dividend, for
the companies’ assets holdings have reached an enormous sum of money in the 2001 fiscal
year. Since the management of Tokyo Style Co. Ltd. was not going to give the stockholders just
the small dividend, he came to a showdown with a manager, the president Yoshio Takano. Their
confrontation began in a general meeting of Tokyo Style Co. Ltd. on May 23, 2002, and the
meeting exceptionally continued for eight hours. Mr. Murakami requested 500-yen dividend a
year, while the companies’ proposal was just 20 yen. The property amounted to 120 billion yen
at the end of this February. Besides, he made two other vital proposes, but all of them were
refused in the meeting. Unfortunately, Mr. Murakami’s proposals did not bear fruit. His impatience
seems to have been one of the causes. If his proposals were much broader, other stockholders
might have accepted them. In addition, his action requesting a great amount of dividend had vital
effects on the Japanese “corporate governance” system. Compared with U.S. companies, the
corporate governance has not been familiar to the Japanese economic world. It follows that
Mr. Murakami has created a stir there.    
     As mentioned above, most Japanese managers have a tendency not to deliver their
companies’ profits to workers or even stockholders. They are apt to amass them so that they
may put the management bases on a firm. It is vital that they do not get profit to themselves
and change the structure of the Japanese economic recession.