JAPANESE TERTIARY EDUCATION
The president, for example, practices tsukiai in a different manner than when his
position was merely that of chair or faculty senate member. He is cognizant of his
position within the organizational structure of the university and, because of this
responsibility, is prone to wield tsukiai to control or punish others, often through
exclusion. Graham (2003) makes exactly the same observation of management
practices at a Japanese insurance company.
Mr. Taguchi, a fun-loving professor who enjoys golf, has always been part of
Mr. Asakubo’s circle of tsukiai friends at EUC, and the two have spent many hours
drinking and golfing together during the more than fifteen years of their working
relationship at EUC. Before he was elected president, Mr. Asakubo often joked to
me in an obviously friendly way about Mr. Taguchi being a “goof off.” In fact, not
only was Taguchi the person who first introduced me to Mr. Asakubo at an after
school eating and drinking event organized by Mr. Taguchi, but he explicitly
expressed to me and others his support of Mr. Asakubo as the future president of
EUC, prior to the faculty senate elections. He expressed excitement about the
prospect of an anticipated “insider” position with his friend, Mr. Asakubo, as the
leader of EUC.
Once he became president, however, Mr. Asakubo has since used this tsukiai
that exists between himself and Taguchi as a form of control, and in some cases
punishment. Taguchi is viewed by President Asakubo as an irresponsible faculty
member who cannot be trusted to act appropriately as a professor (e.g., to show up
at scheduled lectures on time), as an administrator (e.g., to fulfill his
responsibilities as the chair of a committee), or as a researcher (e.g., to publish the
results of research projects for which has received funding). Consequently, Mr.
Asakubo has excluded Mr. Taguchi from his “inner circle” and does not invite him
to drink with other “young” faculty members. The change in the nature of their
relationship has been marked. Though they still joke and are friendly in public, the
president is intent on his attempt to control Taguchi through tsukiai, by
withholding offers of sharing information and, thus, power. Taguchi’s visibility
within the organizational structure has shrunken considerably; his influence has
been controlled through sanctions. Mr. Asakubo’s role as president has
significantly affected his tsukiai, a crucial part of his job.
Tsukiai has the crucial function of transmitting of the tacit, and especially
centripetal, knowledge of the organization and its rituals. This insider knowledge is
directly related to both time spent employed at the university, and also, perhaps
even more importantly, to the time spent in building strong informal networks of
knowledge transmission. The lack of such local knowledge and influence, prized
cultural capital at EUC, can and does directly, and usually adversely, affect a
professor’s performance at work. Yamagiwa-sensei, for example, worked in
industry and government before becoming an academic and thus has a huge store
of social capital external to EUC. She has not taken much interest in
complementing this with internal networks and knowledge since beginning work at
EUC, so she has been unable to effectively express her opinion on work-related
matters, something that might normally be accomplished through tsukiai, for
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example. Consequently, her only resort has been through open and public conflict
with the president and Endō-sensei over the design and implementation of one of
the management courses, normally a means not preferred in Japanese
organizations. “Japanese do not savor open confrontation and animosity, especially
in groups of colleagues who must continue to work together … (Graham 2003, p.
130).” Graham has made the insightful comment that typical “Japanese practices”
in organizational settings are often a product of the organization itself, and so it is a
mistake when observers consider such cultural practices in isolation, as they
sometimes do. I realized this firsthand at EUC. The surface impression I first had
during my participant observation of the general dedication of a few individuals
soon transformed into an almost palpable tension in the work environment the
more personally involved I became in the “local” culture—a pressure to gain in
social capital by investing time and energy in administration and tsukiai and the
parallel risk of losing important links to knowledge and network by not investing
in administration and tsukiai. The recognition of this tension is perhaps missed by
observers whose careers are not tied to their places of observation, unlike either
Fiona Graham or myself.
So, indeed, although on the surface occasions of tsukiai can appear to be light-
hearted events of after-hour leisure, as Graham points out, they “are not social
occasions in the western sense of the word, but rather an indispensable part of
work” (Graham 2003, p. 129). But “meetings” in a Japanese organization of course
appear like work to an outside observer, and these events are also, of course, an in-
dispensable part of work. What may be surprising, however are the often late hours
of these meetings, since at EUC there exists a “… rather diffuse definition of work-
ing hours that characterizes many Japanese organizations” (Ben-Ari 1997b, p. 84).
For many EUC kyōju, meetings and other administrative activities are a defining
part of their work. Though in the professors’ room complaints are heard quite
frequently in reference to administrative work, in actuality the administrative
duties are taken quite seriously by a large proportion of professors. Committee and
labor union activities, department meetings, general and department faculty
meetings, writing entrance examinations, interviewing prospective students,
proctoring both entrance examinations (five per year) as well as midterm and final
examinations for all courses, add up to a considerable amount of administrative
work during the year. Committee work is by far the most time consuming. There
are numerous committees at EUC including: president’s council, academic affairs,
student affairs, admissions, careers/placement, library, international programs,
extension program, and student teaching. The president’s council is the most
powerful, with the academic affairs, student affairs, and admissions also deemed as
important committees to chair. In fact, I was once told that the local EUC culture
holds that “the [political] path to the university presidency must be pass through
the chairmanship of the academic affairs and student affairs committees.”
For this reason the president takes great care and deliberates with confidants at
length during bouts of tsukiai before deciding on the personnel assignments, which
are obligatory. He occasionally rotates the positions, depending on both personal