Corporate Social Responsibility in the EU and Japan

Japan has dominated over many years the discussion on corporate governance, and has even served as best practice and benchmark in this regard until the end of its Bubble Economy in the 1990s. This model was characterised as Lean Management or Toyotism. On the other side, in Europe, has the model of the Rhenanian Capitalism, i.e. Germany, largely influenced the European corporate governance structure and debate. Its main feature is its participatory approach by codetermination, Mitbestimmung, which has found its European dimension in the European Works Council, the European Society, the Social Dialogue etc. With the support of the newly constituted EU-Institute in Japan, Tokyo Consortium, located at Hitotsubashi University, the first EU-Japan Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility took place at the Sano Shoin Conference Centre in Tokyo on 26/27 November 2004. More than 40 experts from six EU Member States (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Sweden) as well as from Japan took part. A special focus was directed on changing wage systems as well on the role of trade unions.