Honda Learns Late About Bias, but It Is Not Alone
In settling discrimination charges last week, Honda of America had to acknowledge that it had made a $6-million blunder in not hiring qualified blacks and women for its U.S. operations between 1983 and 1986. In one sense that’s quite surprising. Honda is perhaps the best player in the world at a most difficult game--international business. Selling products in other countries requires an intricate knowledge of not only foreign customers’ tastes but also the laws that regulate competition and operations in foreign lands. Honda’s history of product innovation and marketing competence is unequaled. Its product quality is the envy of American and Japanese auto makers. And its bold and successful introduction of a new nameplate, the Acura, has stunned auto makers in Nagoya, Stuttgart and Detroit.
So, then, how could one of the world’s best international companies bungle its highly visible hiring practices in the United States? Part of the explanation has to do with its treatment of women and minorities at home. Japan is perhaps the least ethnically diverse country in the world. In contrast to the melting pot of America, Japan has always had stringent immigration policies. People in the world’s most crowded country (when arable land is considered) just don’t welcome foreign settlers.
Korean immigrants and their descendants make up a substantial minority in Japan, and are generally treated derisively. But blonds and blacks are novelties--often sources of wonder in social settings. But something else happens in work settings. The Japanese stereotype of an American manager is a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant male. This isn’t so surprising when you consider the Japanese historical appetite for John Wayne movies. And it isn’t so surprising when you consider the makeup of board rooms in the United States today. Thus we heard former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone two years ago publicly denigrate the intelligence of American blacks and Latinos.
Furthermore, sex discrimination within Japan is absolute. Almost no women hold management positions in major companies like Honda. Instead, women run the home, make all the domestic decisions--major investments even--that the men don’t have time to contemplate. They also tutor their children through the rigors of the Japanese school system. Women working at the office are either receptionists or secretaries--never managers.
Because Japanese and American cultures are so different, all kinds of problems crop up in transpacific business relationships. Many American managers will say, “Never send a woman to Japan.” We’ve even seen that bad advice given among the opening comments of a training film about doing business with the Japanese. We have found that American women can get along fine with Japanese clients when they are properly supported by the other Americans on their own negotiating team and when the Japanese know ahead of time with whom they’ll be bargaining. Surprises can be uncomfortable and embarrassing for the Japanese.
We are beginning to see things improve on both sides of the Pacific. Last year, for the first time ever, I had one of my graduate business-administration students from Japan ask about negotiations with American women. They can’t ignore the crucial role of women in the American business system when 40% of American MBA students are female. And firms like Honda, Nissan and Toyota are changing their hiring practices in the United States. Indeed, the publicity surrounding the Honda case will provide an important role model for other Japanese firms establishing business operations in the United States.
The downside to all the press coverage given to Honda’s hiring biases is the increased potential for Japan-bashing. And I don’t mean to excuse its behavior or diminish the consequences of discriminatory Japanese hiring practices on the women and blacks involved. But what is truly surprising about the Honda case is that it hasn’t come up before. Given the way Japanese culture and business systems work, why hasn’t Honda been called to task sooner?
The answer has to do with the discriminatory hiring practices of comparable U.S. institutions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has had to contend with such American giants as General Motors and State Farm Insurance in the past four years. And my own business is no better; at universities the real hiring decision comes with tenure. Women hold only 10% of tenured faculty positions in the entire UC system, and only 14% at USC. Let him who has not sinned cast the first stone at the Japanese.
