1.

Uniqueness of interdependency in Kyoto

One of the standing points of Kyoto business style is the uniqueness in relations
among government, industries and educational institutions. This kind of partnership is
well-used in Japan and it is called San-gaku-kan ( ). San-gaku-kan defines a
partnership among those three above-mentioned sectors. In each section of partnership,
Kyotos San-gaku-kan is different from that of other cities in Japan. For example,
academia part of San-gaku-kan is so strong, because there are good opportunities to study
and execute a research in Kyoto. If you compare the number of colleges and universities
in Kyoto as a percentage of population to the number of those in other parts of Japan,
Kyoto will be at the top of the list. It boasts the largest concentration of higher education
institutions in Japan. That shows how big Kyotos academia part of San-gaku-kan in
terms of quantity. Moreover, in terms of quality, six of 12 Japans Nobel Prize laureates
were from Kyoto University and this fact proves the originality of Kyoto.
Another example for the uniqueness of Kyoto business practices in San-gaku-kan is
the industry part of the partnership. An employee from Shimadzu Corporation, Koichi
Takeda, won Nobel Prize in 2002, without being affiliated to any higher education or
research center. This also shows the Kyoto business style is full of passionate people who
pursuits whatever they do.
One of the reasons for why San-gaku-kan relationship in Kyoto is developed so well
is the motivators, particularly Masao Horiba, the founder of Horiba Corp. According to
him, the trust between the university and industry should be strong, and he believes that
universities should produce a type of graduate who is ready to tap into the Kyoto spirit.
The Kyoto spirit is common sense for Kyoto style of business. All internationally wellknown Kyoto companies has the Kyoto spirit. For all of them, making profit is not the
ultimate goal. Meanwhile predominant existence for them is to serve the society, fulfill
the needs of the society. Thats why every employee in those companies finds themselves
as a happy person, because they are serving people, societies. Related to this, one of the
peculiarities of Kyoto companies is that companies try to provide to its all employees the
best as much as they can for making them happy. They treat every employee as a family

member. We can state that Kyoto companies might be compared to families, you can feel
it observing how employees treat one another within the company as well as outside it.
Probably it might be related to the fact that most of Kyoto companies originated from
family style of business. And even now, Ishida Co.Ltd is a family owned business.
Kyoto companies have long history, and most of them operates more than a century.
The most interesting part lies down what during their existence, they run the business
with the profit annually, they have barely had annual loss. That is probably related to not
running after profits as western world companies emphasizes it at the top whatever they
do. That is because every employee has passion to work for the growths of its company.
By working its company they will be engaged in for the benefits of societies.
The Kyoto companies strengthen spirits of its employees through their corporate
philosophy and values that have been kept being formulated since its foundation. For
example, Kyocera`s corporate motto Respect the Divine and Love People (Kei-ten-aijin) is admired by any person that works for it. Meanwhile, philosophical basis of the
corporation is devoted to make its employees understand that commercial success and the
material and spiritual fulfillment of its employees are completely related to acting as a
responsible corporate citizen within society. Or corporate philosophy of WACOAL
inspires its employees to work for womens happiness. Another example would be the
practice of Omron that there are several factories not only in its Japanese market but also
in its overseas operations, where they hired only physically handicapped or challenged
people. In Horiba, the equality is viewed as a treasure for their success. They try to avoid
any hierarchical barriers among their CEOs, senior managers, middle managers and
employees. We can see it in the parties that Horiba organizes and some of those parties
require participation of bottom level employees and senior executives in order to make
bottom level employees freely talk to senior executives. Another example of the
importance of philosophy in formulation corporate culture would be the case of Nippon
Shinyaku, where 14 selected herbs (Yaku-so-juyon-sen) are painted in a tablecloth and if
you enter any building under Nippon Shinyaku you can see that tablecloth hanging on the
wall. These herbs were selected as representative herbs on the 80th foundation anniversary
of Nippon Shinyaku. The company declared that they have grown and developed because

of the benefits offered by plants. When employees enter the building and see the
tablecloth, they would be motivated and start their work with the full of energy. These
kinds of activities in Kyotos companies inspire every person, who are working for those
companies of Kyoto, to be more responsible for the growth of societies and make their
best efforts to add value to the development of the human being.
Kyoto style of business has a lot of reflections from the character of people that live
in Kyoto. In other words, we can state it as the impact of Kyotos society on the business
organizations of Kyoto. Generally, all well known Kyoto companies operates in niche
market, and there has never had an economy dominated by keiretsu affiliations and other
type of top-down business structure. Moreover Kyoto is not a home to any big banks or
financial institutions, but in fact it is a home for strong local banks like Kyoto Bank,
Kyoto Chuo Shinkin Bank. These are because of the reflection of the society that does
not like to cede control to larger entities. In short, the society had effect on companies
that they would rather go their own way and survive in a niche than grow in every
direction, nurtured by government, big business links, and special banking relationships.
One of the peculiarities of Kyoto spirit is educating young generation to take risk and
try as a start up. It is clear that Japanese is considered as uncertainty avoidance nation.
There are a lot of advantages in it, but there is some disadvantages as well. For example,
to find out all uncertainty takes a lot of time. Sometimes one needs to make a swift
decision and act as much as it can. And Kyoto has its peculiarity in terms of providing
and educating risk-takers. There is a freer business climate for entrepreneurs in Kyoto,
which most of the cases we can see government involvement in these actions. Kyoto
Research Park is an example of successful collaboration among a private sector, the
government and the academic sector. Also, Kyoto Research Park is 100 percent owned by
Osaka Gas, but a main part of the site is effectively under the control of the local
government. The most important relationships of Kyoto Research Park is with
government bodies through ASTEM. ASTEM stands for Advanced Software Technology
and Mechatronics Institute, and belongs to the Kyoto city governments. ASTEM offers
subsidized incubator services to entrepreneurs to launch up their business.

The older generations of Kyoto Business play main roles in promoting the Kyoto
spirit and hanging it over to younger generation. The founder of Horiba Corp, Masao
Horiba is one of several well known businessmen who enjoys the more refined side of
Japanese culture while helping Kyoto develop its venture economy in a different and
more accelerated direction than the rest of Japan. Other entrepreneurs in this group
include Kyocera founder Kazuo Inamori and Yoshio Tateishi of the founding family of
Omron. Horiba describes them as the generation that carried heritages to younger
generation creating more opportunities, promoting them to improve the spirit to serve the
needs of the society.
Besides the Kyoto spirit, there is a concept related to the formulation of Kyoto
Brand which shows the interdependence of the business in Kyoto to the society. Kyoto
by itself became The Power brand, with its appeal to high tech industry groups, its
status as an academic city, meanwhile combining all those to the cultural heritages that
came to it through becoming ancient capital and maintaining its status as a cultural center
of Japan. In the formulation of the Kyoto brand, industries, higher education centers and
the government unified with their actions and powers. The Kyoto brand is an example for
what the initiatives and guidance of universities and government agencies are
indispensable, e.g. original technologies generated through the fusion of advanced and
traditional technology; eco-design appropriate to the birth place of the Kyoto Protocol;
and the introduction of universal design to towns and public facilities to welcome large
numbers of people.

2. Bibliography:

Kyoto: A Blueprint For Japan? by Alex Stewart, December 2001

KUBO Masayoshi, Concentrate all will to Kyoto Brand, Journal of Kyoto
Seika University, No. 29 2005, pages 21-28

Web pages of companies

http://www.wacoal.com/
http://global.kyocera.com/
http://www.horiba.com/jp/
http://www.omron.com/
http://www.nippon-shinyaku.co.jp/english/
http://www.ishida.co.jp