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International Journal of Cross Cultural Management
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Why Globalizing with a Conservative Corporate Culture Inhibits Localization of Management

The Telling Case of Matsushita Electric

Nigel Holden

Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, njh.ikl{at}cbs.dk

This contribution focuses on the challenges facing the Matsushita corporation of Japan, one of the world's largest companies and one with a 70-year commitment to serving society, as it attempts to reconcile its very conservative business philosophy and accompanying discourse with one particular demand of globalization highlighted in this contribution: the entrusting of power to local managers. Attention is paid to the evolution of the Matsushita corporation and the legacy of its influential founder, Konosuke Matsushita (1894-1989), whose business philosophy, developed in the early 1930s, is still the foundation of the company's decision-making processes. Based on a worldwide empirical study it is shown that the ethnocentricity and the very discourse of globalization of the Matsushita Corporation works against localization. Despite the unusual features associated with the Matsushita Corporation, its Japanocentric outlook and practices suggest productive new directions for cross cultural management research.

Key Words: corporate culture • globalization • Japan • Konosuke Matsushita • localization • Matsushita Electric Industrial Company

International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, 53-72 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/147059580111007
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