Is diversity management a fad? Female self-initiated expats working in Japanese organisations

Introduction

How much can we trust public statements from businesses? It is not easy to articulate reality. Critical realism (Archer, 1998) and narrative-management (Froud et al., 2006) try to appreciate the mechanisms behind events, through questioning the superficial numbers/messages. These angles are important in that it is not easy to see the reality of an organisation from the outside. If we believe that organisations exist within a given society, as neo-institutional theory argues, their public relations could be influenced by the views of society as a whole. This may explain why the same strategies are adopted at the same time by large numbers of organisations. Webb (1977) and Liff (1999) argue that adopting popular strategies can work in favour of the organisation’s public image.
 
Interestingly, ‘diversity management’ is currently being adopted or has recently been adopted in many Japanese organisations, and the government and media have consistently supported the idea and its penetration (e.g., Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2014). Given the arguments of the critical realism approach and narrative-management concepts, it is interesting to investigate whether this fashionable strategy is genuinely implemented inside organisations. Narrative management (Froud et al., 2006) can be used to examine whether organisations’ public statements reflect reality. From an accounting perspective, it questions how well the numbers and statements issued by organisations show the reality of their workings (ibid.). The concept indicates that there is ‘a gap between saying and doing’ (ibid), in that organisations do not necessarily take the actions with their employees that they publicly claim.
 
The phenomenon of ‘diversity management’ in Japanese organisations has fundamentally been boosted by the Japanese government, who Issued guidelines for organisations to follow.
 
In 2012, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced the definition of ‘diversity management’ for the first time. It is defined as management utilising diverse human resources, and offering them opportunities to develop their capabilities, leading to value-creation as well as more innovation (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2023). The government has encouraged organisations to take action on diversity management, and in 2018 they published guidelines indicating the actions that should be taken (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2018). The guidelines state what diversity management means for organisations, what types of new rules and environments are necessary, how much organisations are required to reform themselves to change their management teams as well as their employees etc. (ibid.).
 
In spite of this, when it comes to international employees, women in Japan, who are one of the targets of diversity management, are falling behind other developed countries. The Japanese labour market has recently opened to non-Japanese candidates, especially in the last decade or so, but the social status of women in Japan is less than even some developing countries. Indeed, the ratio of Japanese women who  have obtained a managerial position in Japanese organisations is 13.2%, which was the lowest among the developed and emerging countries. This is based on the data collected from 6,000 Japanese organisations who employed more than ten staff (NHK, 2023). For instance, the US was 41.4%, Philippines was 53%, Sweden was 43%, Australia was 40%, Singapore was 38.1% and Malaysia was 24.9% (ibid.). Furthermore, the ratio of women who are board members of public listed Japanese firms was 10.7%, which is again comparatively lower than other countries: 13% (China), 28.3% (US), 34.7% (UK), 40.4% (Norway), 45.1% (Sweden) according to Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (2023). Although more Japanese women have now been employed, their social position seems to be lower than they expected.
 
This leads to the question of whether Japanese organisations have therefore been struggling to change their traditional methods and follow what the government has asked, and in particular, how have they used diversity management as a competitive strategy to help females develop their abilities. This research aims to examine whether Japanese organisations who have officially adopted a diversity management strategy with the focus on female self-initiated expatriates are really implementing such a strategy. This will be analysed through the eyes of female self-initiated expatriates who see the strategy developing in their workplaces. Research questions are as follows:

• How much is diversity management discourse reflected in the actual practices of Japanese organisations, regarding their female expats:
 
• How useful has the strategy been for female self-initiated expatriates?

 The following section reviews the relevant literature on diversity management as well as critical realism and narrative-management concepts that underlie the later discussion of this theme. An explanation of the chosen research methodology follows. The findings are provided and analysis is described, and then academic contribution is discussed before practical implications are indicated.

Literature review

Diversity management:
Diversity management was first proposed as a management method within the US in order to understand and accept employee differences (e.g., Tienari, Katila and Benschop, 2009). Diversity brings innovation and creativity, and is therefore a competitive advantage (Bassett-Jones, 2005). Diversity management has been shown to be a very successful strategy, so that the importance of an organisation taking its diversity management seriously is now clear (Liff, 1999).
 
Although the strategy has received much attention from the general public, it has gradually narrowed its focus in Japan to gender equality. Skilled female staff are a relatively common target of diversity management, and strategies include improved ways to tackle the glass ceiling, rather than reforming the current wage gap between females and males (Kirton and Greene, 2010). This has led to organisations seeing the ratio of female executives as one of the most serious issues, which could lead to gender equality overall being considered less.
 
Interestingly, Kirton and Greene, (2010) state that gender equality is not automatically prioritised when diversity discourse receives more attention. Following neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), the diversity management-discourse matters for organisations to gain legitimacy from, and survive in, society. Webb (1997) argues similarly, indicating that diversity management strategy works to improve organisational image. Liff (1999) indicates that award systems in the UK to select organisations who best exercise diversity management imply radical transformation in organisations.
 
Thus, gender equality has been a central argument among previous studies, and one question they have in common is whether or not diversity management brings good results for women. This question has been discussed widely and globally in different contexts (Billing & Sundin, 2006; Webb, 1997). In the case of the UK, organisations find that declaring their diversity management is critical for them to retain highly skilled female workers, and this is more than a way socially to justify their actions (Kirton and Greene, 2010). Maxwell (2004) also suggests that specific training programmes for diversity management should reduce weakness of the female workforce. Kirton and Greene (2007) indicate that differences should be welcomed and rewarded.
 
On the other hand, it has been also discussed that diversity management is not as easy as scholars, practitioners, and the public assume. For example, Foster and Harris (2006) argue that it is easy to announce the strategy but difficult actually to implement it. There is often a gap between employers’ intention to adopt a strategy and line managers’ ability to understand and carry the strategy out, leading to tensions between the senior management team (SMT) and the line managers. Similarly, Ashely (2010) found that, in the case of the UK law firms, diversity is rejected/resisted at both institutional and individual levels. It is not easy to change organisational cultures in following a diversity management strategy (Ashley, 2010). Liff (1999) suggests that it could be better not to abandon the existing rules, as there is little evidence to show that organisational managers can transform in the way the strategy specifies. At the same time, how much minority staff such as female workers could try to fit into the new strategy is always a target to be judged (Liff, 1999). Employees trying to implement a diversity agenda tend to suffer from ‘equality fatigue’ according to Ashley (2010). Thus, there have been criticisms concerning diversity management from employees.
 
In the context of Japan, on the other hand, a diversity management paradigm started during the 2010s and is now widespread under guidance from the government. The discussion in past studies on Japanese diversity management is converging towards female workers, too, although the number of studies is still small.
 
How much diversity and inclusion are implemented in reality depends on the industry sector, according to Alcantara and Shinohara (2022). Only a limited number of sectors showed an effort to empower female workers, and these did not do well with regard to female leadership (ibid). An interesting argument is suggested by Kato and Kodama (2015), that the adoption of performance-based pay under gender equality causes a stricter assessment of both women and men, leading to a lower ratio of women in senior positions. Having said that, institutional pressure seems to affect all industries’ levels of diversity and inclusion (ibid). Song et al. (2021) also emphasise that Japan is still a male-dominated workforce. In the area of researchers, there is a lower ratio of women in comparison to other developed countries, and the authors indicate that this could cause instability for women’s future careers. Similarly, Oguchi (2020) analysed the case of science researchers in Japan to understand how much female researchers are actually involved, and found that although about 30% are female, there are almost no female leaders in this academic area.
 
There has been some belief in academia and in the public that diversity management can bring positive results and end discrimination, but there are few or no studies that criticise or are sceptical of this tactic. Gender opportunities and diversity management have been argued as different ways to handle improvements for minorities in past studies. In the Japanese case, the government defines that diversity management targets organisational staff who have diverse backgrounds including gender, age, race, nationality, disability, religion, etc. (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2021a). As a result of the above, this research focusses on female self-initiated expatriates, to understand what diversity management means for them.
 
In the US/UK contexts, diversity management was being discussed in the literature from the 2000s, but literature on the Japanese case has only been produced relatively recently, with support from the government. The Japanese case seems to lag behind the UK/US, and Japanese organisations could learn from history as well. In this study, the focus is not simply the female minority but more specifically female self-initiated expats. The number of the latter has increased in Japan, along with the huge increase in the total number of foreign workers (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2024). Previous studies on diversity management, discussed above, globally and in Japan, have covered female workers but have not really focussed on female expats.
 
Critical Realism and Narrative-management:
To bring critical perspectives into social science becomes important for reconstruction in philosophy (Sayer, 1995; 1997). While socialism has been on the wane, critical views at an ideological level have been declining, but these need to be re-examined (ibid).
 
Critical realism is one of the philosophical perspectives of transcendental realism and was brought about in order to argue against positivism (Archer, 1998). Critical realism provides us with realistic possibilities to emancipate humans through structural changes, while positivism is based on empirical facts eliminating metaphysical aspects that examine the ultimate and general nature of real phenomena. In other words, post-enlightenment epistemology and philosophy of social science are discussed within realism and empiricism, in which all knowledge is observable and experience is reality, bringing about constant conjunctions of events (Hands, 2001).
 
However, Sayer (1997) insisted that there are limitations in critical social science, while he accepts its value. A critical perspective for social science is disputable because we cannot easily find how to solve problems relating to social phenomena (ibid). Also, the structures focused on by realism and explicandum are not easily specified, making them opaque and making it difficult to find mechanisms to solve them (Maki, 1996). Proponents of realism often provide explanations without taking into account normative issues that are important to bring about emancipation (Sayer, 1997). Therefore an ethical view should be reestablished in social science (Hodgson, 1997).
 
The universality of laws cannot be satisfied by positivism, because it lacks not only sufficiently full datasets, but also the necessity of deductive reasoning (Archer, 1998). Regularities are brought about only under artificial and closed situations, where other conditions are controlled, in order to be able to observe those regularities, and thereby these scientifically-gained objects are seen as the same as real-life experiences, which is called as epistemic fallacy (Bhaskar, 1989). Hands (2001) also stressed the weak points of empiricism. He said that it is impossible for only one scientific theory to test phenomena, and it should be considered with other theories and hypotheses (ibid). Atomistic events as well as closed systems cause the problem to be attendant on induction (Archer, 1998). On the other hand, critical realism, which puts the emphasis not on generalisation but on the structure of objects, checks whether empirical testing is real or not, to discover mechanisms in science (ibid).
 
Under the critical realism lens, the narrative-management concept (Froud et al., 2006) can be used critically to analyse the reality of diversity management in Japan. The concept originally came from the field of accounting, to examine the pictures behind the numbers. To what extent a number disclosed in bookkeeping can articulate reality is the main question behind the concept. Froud et al., (2006) argued ‘a gap between saying and doing’, implying that numbers could be boosted through saying, such as in public disclosure. In other words, it is worth questioning superficially available information.
 
In Japan, the government has encouraged Japanese organisations to adopt a diversity management agenda (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2018), and a wide range of Japanese organisations have announced their diversity management strategies, to adjust to this new institutional pressure. More than 96% of Japanese organisations have shared their agreements and state why the ideas of diversity management and inclusion are critical for them (Dimond Online, 2022). The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has started an award system for Japanese organisations who can show successful diversity management. From 2012 to 2021 they chose the 100 best cases every year among organisations with more than 300 staff (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2021b). The public as well as the government are putting pressure on Japanese organisations to increase diversity management, and accordingly, organisations’ discourses might improve their public image, as Kirton and Greene (2010), Foster and Harris (2006), and Webb (1997) indicated. This could be one of their aims in announcing the strategy, rather than a real intention of implementing it. This paper therefore examines how much, following the government guidance, Japanese organisations have implemented their diversity management strategies.

Research design and data collection

As discussed in the literature review, critical realism is adopted in this research. Accordingly, the chosen research design has an inductive approach that is philosophically supported by constructivism. Human beings are self-interpreters and so always attach meanings of their choices, actions, and thoughts (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019). Therefore humans cannot be studied using techniques that apply to natural objects (e.g., chemicals and metals). They hold a ‘subjectivist’ view, based largely on ‘understanding’. For deeper understanding of the phenomenon being studied, the actuality of diversity management in Japanese organisations needs to be explored. In order to achieve this, an interview-based qualitative method is used, and narrative inquiry is used to analyse the collected interview data.
 
Interview data were collected from 25 female self-initiated expatriates who came from 11 different countries. Their demographic information is shown on the Tables 1 and 2. All are female and self-initiated expatriates; in other words, they chose to work in Japanese organisations within Japan. Some of them gained their education in Japan before working in their organisations (see Table 1). All of the interview data were collected by a research assistant of the author during 2023. Each interview took more than an hour, and they were conducted in English or Japanese.

Table 1. Number of Interviewees and Their Nationalities

Table 2. Demographic Breakdown of Interviewees
 
All of the participants’ organisations have publicly announced their diversity management strategies, at least on their homepages. The strategies all seem to be similar, and this research will use the action guidelines set by the government as a comparison. The guidelines are called ‘Diversity 2.0 Action Guidelines’ and they have been widely shared by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2018: p7). The guidelines state that to implement diversity management, organisations need:

1. Management strategy: a top leader is essential, and this needs to be clear for all staff. A top leader formulates KPIs and a roadmap and takes the lead in his or her responsibilities.
2. Governance: A board member supervises the diversity management process to ensure it is conducted in the right way. The quality of their supervision function needs to be high quality, which can be aided by board members’ gender balance and internationalisation of the concepts of diversity management within the board.
3. Improvement in environment and rule: Complete restructuring in HR system and an understanding of the importance of work-life balance.
4. Reforming behaviours and awareness of managerial positions: Fostering managers who can accelerate a diverse work environment.
5. Reforming behaviours and awareness of employees: Fostering employees who can develop their own careers based on their own plans and can work autonomously.
6. Information disclosure towards the labour market and capital market: a need to announce the contents and results of a consistent HR strategy. Also need to disclose, and communicate with investors about, diversity management principles and attempts that lead to improved organisational value.

(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2018: p7/ Translated from Japanese to English by the author)

In terms of good implications for female expats, 3-5 above should directly influence their performance, future career development, and capabilities. That is why 3-5 will be examined in this research from the perspective of female expats in the analysis section, to find out how much the proposed actions are actually implemented in their organisations.

Data analysis and findings

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in the Japanese government officially announced its ‘Diversity 2.0 Action Guidelines’ in 2018, so that Japanese organisations can appreciate what it means, what they need to do and change, and what would lead to better results. Among the actions in the list above, 3-5 (3: Complete restructuring of the HR system and understanding of work-life balance, 4: Fostering managers who can accelerate a diverse work environment, 5: Fostering employees who can develop their own careers based on their own plans and can work autonomously) will be examined through the lens of female self-initiated expatriates.
 
The Diversity 2.0 Action Guidelines show the actions that Japanese organisations should take (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2018), but how far have these been  implemented? The female expats realised, in general, that diversity management had been announced by their organisations. One shared the following thought about the atmosphere of her organisation, relevant to the strategy:

Q: Please tell me about the diversity management strategy of your organisation for gender equality?
A: There are posters in the company with messages such as ‘no gender harassment’ and ‘no sex discrimination,’ and they also mentioned it orally. There are always lots of men in this field (chemistry), but in our team and lab there is quite a nice, equal percentage of men and women. But the higher you go, the less women there are in the company. I do not think there is any specific programme or system to support women in particular, besides general things like insurance.

It seems that there are some advertisements to inform employees of the strategy, but little else in place.
 
The following female expats also discussed some strategies in two different organisations:

Yes, I have heard many things about the diversity management strategy. They recently hired a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Department. They are actively hiring more foreigners; I am one of them. We received a lot of training about diversity and inclusion policies. My company is around 70% male and 30% female, and around 80% male 20% female at the management level.
 
AND:
 
I do not think that there is a very clear strategy about that. All the managers are male. Part of my company’s investment is from a foreign company. They have a policy of equality and gender diversity, but it is not being carried out very well. There are some female designers but very few in managerial positions. On the other hand, nationality-wise, I think they are quite open to hiring foreigners.

It might depend on industry, as indicated by Alcantara and Shinohara (2022), yet there are some trials to employ more foreigners and female expats, and this seems to be common across different industries, according to the above testimonies. Although these trials exist, the question remains, to what extent has the announced strategy been actually implemented in the organisations? The interviewees above simultaneously raised concerns about the results of the strategy, such as those below:

[…] Personally, I find it annoying that there are still only men in higher positions, despite all the sayings about gender diversity.
 
AND:
 
No, I would not say that the strategy has affected female expats’ performance, adjustment speed, motivation, and commitment. I have not really thought much about this throughout my projects and my research activities. I do not think it helped me in any way. Also I am fine with the work environment. […]

Both of them questioned the effects of the strategy at work. For further examination, more interview data will be analysed based on the three suggested actions [3-5] by the government in the following sections.
 
Guideline 3. Whole restructuring in HR system and work-life balance
 
The government has urged Japanese organisations to carry out diversity actions, in order to improve their work environments as well as their norms. In detail, the government suggests that organisations reform their HR systems and working styles for any employees who have different backgrounds. Yet, it is academically recognised that Japanese HR remains stagnant (e.g., Morris et al., 2018), though there have been some studies indicating changes such as performance-based promotion (ibid.). There appears to be a gap between academic understanding and public statements regarding diversity management strategy. The Japanese HR system is represented by long-term strategies (such as Endo et al., 2015). ‘Longer’ has many meanings for working style, such as habitually working long days, life-long security and age-based pay and promotion applied to every worker (e.g., Yorozu, 2022). This way of working has its pros and cons, but the government is asking for a change towards a more flexible working environment. The guidelines suggest that the Japanese working-style should change for female staff so that they can enjoy a better work-life balance. Work-life balance has been one of the important aspects for boosting gender equality (e.g., Kato and Kodama, 2015). But is this more flexible working style applied for female expats in reality? The following three female expats shared their working habits at their respective workplaces:

I do not have any complaints about my organisation. Having said that, if I take paid leave for long, I am regarded as a selfish staff member, as local Japanese take only two or three days. Also, I receive work-related calls and message on my phone even over the weekend. My colleagues tend to treat me as a stranger if I do not reply. […] Promotion is as slow as other traditional Japanese firms, yet it could be faster if a woman does not take maternity and/or child care leave.
 
AND:
 
The challenge would be mostly on the language barrier side as it can be challenging sometimes to communicate in Japanese, and on the difficulty on keeping a good work/life balance as we often have to work long hours in a pretty stressful environment.
 
AND:
 
I think that the current company’s rules and regulations are not designed in a way that acknowledges or accommodates non-Japanese employees. For example, my company has a rule that new hires are not allowed to take leave for more than 3 consecutive days in their first 5 years of working. This makes it impossible for most international workers to visit their home country, as the travel time from and to Japan already takes at least 2 days. Also, international employees are not allowed extra leave for immigration-related processes (e.g., renewal of visa, etc.) whereas Japanese employees are granted extra leave if they have to undergo similar processes when going abroad.

All of the above expats suffer from long hours at work, including lack of paid holiday time. This applies not only to female expats but also for to all employees including local Japanese, but it seems the need to maintain work-life balance matters more for female expats. Also, working long hours was suggested as an issue in past studies (e.g., Yorozu, 2022) but this environment seems to remain. The female expat below explains that her organisation made an effort to hire more international workers, but did not seem to have put mitigating working conditions in place:

I did not notice any explicit strategy to accommodate female international workers specifically. There were certain efforts to accommodate female workers, such as a flexitime system and female leadership training workshops. The company made efforts to hire more internationals, although I think that the efforts to accommodate them after being hired were still not sufficient, and thus many quit and there was not enough representation of female international workers.　

A flexitime working style has been encouraged by the government too (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare). The number of Japanese organisations who have adopted the system reached 2,600 in 2024 according to a search on the website of one of the leading Japanese recruitment agencies (Rikunabi, 2024). Training in diversity management has also been increased, which will be discussed below. An interesting point is that in spite of efforts to recruit more international workers, organisations do not seem prepared to accommodate them, and in the end most choose to leave.
 
The earlier interviewees who acknowledged their organisations’ diversity management announcements, showed concerns about pay and promotion, and according to the following interviewees, the situation is highly unsatisfactory:

I am dissatisfied with the lack of career growth. I wish the company would be more inclusive in the way that they value the capabilities of women. I also wish that they promoted more women to managerial positions. […] I have never experienced someone bullying or saying bad things to me, but I think they do view females as less capable than males, hence the imbalance in gender ratio. The ratio is 3-1 male to female, also in the managerial level.
 
AND:
 
As a female, there are some challenges. An example is work promotion, as men tend to get promoted more than women. The chances of your voice being heard is lower as a female.
 
AND:
 
In the past, the female-male ratio was around 20-80 in my company; now it is 50-50. In managerial positions, I am the only female supervisor in my team, so the ratio is like 10-90.

The above testimony commonly showed slower promotion for women than men, and managerial positions mostly occupied by men. In the case of local women, past studies (e.g., Oguchi, 2020) also found that the ratio of females occupying senior posts has not increased, even though the number of female hires to Japanese organisations has. The ratio of females at the managerial level was 12.3%, and that of Japanese organisations who have females in managerial positions was 53.2% as of 2021 according to the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (2021), who conducted a survey of Japanese organisations. These ratios include local female employees, and so we do not see the case specifically for female expats. Yet both ratios imply some more room for organisations to open senior positions to women. This might encourage female expats to work much harder, as the following data show:

Although sometimes I can’t help but think that gender does play a role in career development since most supervisors are male. I am the only female supervisor in my team. I tried 1,000% to prove to them that I can do the job, and after 6 years I got promoted to the supervisor position. I also think that the discrimination is more race-based than gender-based. As I am a Filipina, in the past I received judgements based on my race, for example that my English is not the same as other English native speakers.

This female expat is expected to put huge effort into her job to get a promotion that a man would have to work less hard for. Surprisingly, discrimination seems to occur not only against women but also based on nationality. A similar issue was also shared by another female expat as follows:

[…] From my and my peers’ experience, there is also a different attitude towards foreigners coming from different countries. For example, people from developed countries do get roles with higher pay compared to people from developing countries.

The above data show that the pay and promotion systems are less clearcut than the interviewees initially assumed. Also, the above testimony indicates difficulties in the HR system, which seem to be particular to women. If the race issue is added, female expats are clearly suffering the most. Interestingly, another testimony shows more confusing consequences that occur especially for female expats:

For the first 1-2 years the prospect was okay. I learned so many things. I do not know if it is the industry or if it is the Japanese company, but it is dominated by males and I could not get promoted as fast as the male colleagues. Most female colleagues left after one year. It is very competitive and cut-throat. In the end, I also found out that male colleagues got a higher salary than me. The promotion requirements for male and female employees are also different. When I talked to my manager, he said that for the next step I would need a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) certification, while the male colleagues who got promoted did not have that. In another case, my female colleague was told that she needs to pass JLPT N2 level (Japanese language exam), while the other international male colleagues who got promoted did not even speak Japanese.

Ambiguous and unclear process of promotion do not create a motivational environment for female expats, and it appears that gender is a bigger issue than race/nationality, which leaves many female expats choosing to leave their organisations. Some other expats felt that the work environment creates two different worlds for males and females, as indicated below:

I do not recall any outright negative discrimination experiences at work, but it was clear that I was treated differently as a female. For example, male colleagues and bosses tended to be ‘soft’ in their feedback on my work, while they were more likely to be harsh when they were talking among males. Promotions that occurred during my time at the company were mostly to male workers. (Apart from department-wide and team-wide gatherings, personal networking events were usually separated by gender, mostly male-only.)

The interviewee felt that females are not expected to work as professionally as male counterparts. They work under the same roof, yet they are recognised as a different type of resource, leading to different speed of promotion. Once again, female expats appear to be frustrated by the current system.
 
Guideline 4: Fostering managers who can accelerate a diverse work environment
 
This guideline is about reforming awareness and actions at the managerial level. How much have these changed to boost a diverse working environment for female expats? According to the following female expats:

My workplace is also dominated by men occupying all the higher positions, but I was lucky that my team leader and members seem to be understanding and they treat me well, so I do not feel discriminated within my team.
 
AND:
 
Regarding being a female employee, I want to say no gender descrimination., but in some cases, I have a feeling that specifically some older men do not deal well with females in the science field. This is just my thought, as I have not been directly faced with an exact situation. I have not heard about this from friends and colleagues either; we have not really talked about it.

It appears that whether senior staff work well with female expats or not is an individual issue, regardless of organisation, industry, etc. Nevertheless, many female expats have the same feelings as those above, that they are not taken seriously. Even HR senior staff do not take seriously the tasks given to female expats according to the following expat:

I think that working at Japanese firms is a good opportunity to cultivate experience, language skills, and learn about working with a different culture in the short term. However, it is not suitable for the long term, when considering promotion and the career path forward. One of my strongest impressions towards how I am considered as an international employee was when a senior HR staff member in my company said (in my presence) that ‘international workers should only be assigned general repetitive tasks, not highly-specialised work.’

Commonly, local Japanese senior employees are criticised by female expats because they do not try to understand expats, their different backgrounds, etc., and it is not a good environment for expats if seniors do not treat them fairly, the same as local counterparts. Concerning this issue, the following female expats expressed fundamental problems as follows:

I was frustrated that many employees seemed to lack awareness and understanding towards us and the need to ‘internationalise’ themselves (i.e., learn other languages and cultures, communicate with internationals). Although I did not experience it myself, I also witnessed some inappropriate seniority-based treatment and expectations towards new hires and people of lower positions (e.g., harsh words, forced drinking).
 
AND:
 
I am the only international (worker) in the company and almost no one speaks English here. For important matters we use Google Translate to communicate, but I sometimes waited or skipped the conversation if the matter was not so important. I took one course in Japanese before coming to Japan.

There seems to be a lack of flexibility among Japanese senior staff regarding background in culture, ways of working, communication. This type of behaviour by local staff appears to cause further issues especially for female staff. For example, one female expat explained her own experiences about harassment:

[…] most Japanese can’t really decipher these kinds of circumstances unless they’ve lived abroad. An example was when I was sexually harassed in the workplace for the first time. The only people who totally understood my side was the Executive Chief who has lived abroad for quite a long time, and my other female expats colleagues. Thankfully, my Executive Chief relayed my concern to the CEO and the CEO talked to me (in Japanese) and apologised, and had that employee fired right away.

Harassment is one of the focusses of the diversity management guidelines (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2023). Nevertheless, organisations don’t seem to have developed processes to handle it. This female expat expressed her anger about how the firm dealt with harassment, including using the Japanese language to apologise. Similarly, in another context, fundamental acknowledgement by seniors of female expats sounds unchanged, according to the expat below:

Being a female, sometimes I think I have an advantage because the male colleagues will talk to me and treat me better than they do each other. But sometimes they would try to test my boundaries by asking ‘Can you do this?’ or ‘Can you do that?’ I managed it by showing them my skills, my love, and my passion. I talk and speak up for myself.

Female expats simultaneously acknowledge their advantages in working at firms. Yet as the above data indicate, they feel that they are treated as useless due to being female. Thus, Japanese workplaces still appear male oriented, implying that awareness and understanding of local staff at the managerial level might not yet be ready to work with female expats, or even women in general.  
 
Guideline 5: Fostering employees who can develop their own careers based on their own plans and can work autonomously
 
How much have female expats’ career paths been supported by their organisations to boost their motivations as well as to help their development? Sadly, most of the interviewees had a negative impression concerning the change in the ways of Japanese organisations to foster female expats. The following females suggested the same negativity regarding the nature of their allocated tasks:

I notice that female employees get assigned more administrative tasks, while the male coworkers get more challenging, rewarding tasks. I manage the conflict by making extra efforts to be more proactive, such as stepping up, speaking up about problems with the work and presenting ways to tackle them, in order to show that I am capable of complex tasks.
 
AND:
 
I am concerned about equality between men and women, as well as about Japanese prejudice. Females, especially non-Japanese females, have disadvantages at work, and most organisational staff, especially older staff, never listen to our voices. Regardless of nationality, females are usually assigned general and unimportant tasks. I feel that females are seen as only general office workers who just do chores. Once they come back from maternity leave, they never come back to the previous/same department. Their careers stop.

Other expats also indicated that the same challenges could hinder their career development:

I am not sure if it is because I am a female or a non-Japanese, but I do notice that I rarely get assigned challenging tasks. This makes promotion very unlikely. […..] As I am the youngest team member, I am often assigned tasks that are not related to my job, such as managing drinks gatherings and other administrative tasks. I also experience language difficulties in meetings, where a lot of technical terms are used. Again, being the youngest member, I get assigned both to moderate the meeting and to record the meeting minutes. I find these tasks to be very challenging and time-consuming.

The nature of the assigned work sounds far from providing autonomous and enriching opportunities to refine their career development. This could be related to training opportunities, which are generally still offered only in Japanese:

There could have been more opportunities given. I think part of it is due to the language barrier. There are a lot of skills that I would like to develop. The company offers courses and training sessions for these, but 90% of them are in Japanese. In that sense, I feel that I have not had equal opportunity.

As discussed earlier, senior or management staff might not understand well the difficulties that expats face in the work environment. The above testimony might not be exclusive to female expats, but a work environment centred around local employees sounds similar to testimonies introduced in other sections. Such an environment could be one of the reasons for the very limited number of female expats who are in higher positions. The following interviewees showed their concern about their future careers:

One challenge is less female participation. You do not have anyone to look up to, so there is no role model. I love my job, but I cannot see what I will look like 10 years down the line because 1) there is no female participation 2) no female higher-ups and 3) no female foreigners in those positions. I cannot see who I want to be. I am very achievement-oriented. I also think that less participation makes the environment less female friendly. We have things like menstruation leave and I like them, but in my department the colleagues are still dominantly male. On the other hand, even where I came from the ratio was 40% female and 60% male. Here, I have no female colleagues. It is not that I have gender bias, but it is nice to have same-gender friends.
 
AND:
 
As an entry-level worker then, I did not think that I was in a position that could change the male-dominated power structure. I felt that I had to accept it the way it was then, although having quitted I think it has influenced my future choices when considering whether to work in a firm with such culture and structure again. I tried to establish myself as a capable and independent worker. Knowing the gender and age bias, I approached colleagues and higher-ups in an observative and humble manner to make a good impression, but I also learned to speak my mind in a subtle way when I felt that I should stand up for something.

These two different female expats working in different industries both had dissatisfaction with their roles. One had no relevant role model for female expats in her organisation whereas the other had to suppress herself rather than express herself, to survive in her role. They didn’t find either a bright, goal-driven or capability driven working life and were disappointed in the end. Needless to say, they had a passion to work in and establish themselves in Japan, when they started.
 
In coming back to the discussion about the government’s strong recommendations regarding diversity management, we can also see a generally positive belief from the public regarding the results of diversity management. According to one of the leading business magazines:

For company’s competitiveness to be boosted, the diversity management idea has proceeded. So far Japanese men without disabilities have been the main players; yet it appears that Japanese firms are starting to change their strategies. […..] This could be explained by the fact that their diversity management actions are centred around females, so that women can actively take part in firms’ work. Successful cases in diversity management mostly include activities that encourage women to be active, under the most critical theme about empowering women. (Toyokeizai, 2013)

The magazine positively assessed the overall progress of organisations’ diversity management processes, and mentioned that the strategies focus mainly on females. The magazine sent a questionnaire to the Japanese organisations to assess their diversity-related activities. They concluded that the best case was Toshiba, followed by Shiseido, Fujitsu and Sony, as of 2013 (Toyokeizai, 2013). While the government has a similar award system for diversity management, private media-led award opportunities might encourage Japanese organisations to be more engaged in the social dynamics of the diversity acceptance project. Furthermore, the strategy seems to be treated as a ‘to do strategy’ for success according to other media;
 
It has been widely expected in the society that diversity should be respected and its importance has received much attention. […] It is critical to appreciate that the idea is essential, especially because of the social issues and international background that Japan is faced with. There are also many advantages gained through the adoption of a diversity management, such as:

1. It leads to retaining diverse human resources.
2. It could bring about an innovation.
3. It leads to improvement in organisational branding.
(Schoo, 2023/ translated by the author from Japanese to English)
 

Diversity is also a strongly recommended strategy within the wider society of Japan. The media also believe that retention and public image can be improved through diversity management. This push from the public might boost the adoption of the strategy in Japanese organisations, but this research highlights some confusion about its progress and a disparity between the passion of employers and that of the public. There is no doubt that the process of change in Japanese organisations is slow, if we follow institutional theory, especially Variety of Capitalism (VoC) (e.g., Amable, 2002). This research indicates relatively limited transformation towards a perfect diversity management environment for female expats. Although the rate of progress might depend on the industry sector (e.g., Alcantara and Shinohara, 2022), organisation, employees, etc., one common factor shown in this research is limited space for female expats dynamically to work and develop. An interesting picture gained here is that there appears to be a different tone between what the public believes is occurring and what organisational insiders (here female expats) see for themselves. For female expats, diversity management in their organisations is rather ambiguous and unclear, though they confirm that the word itself has been a critical ‘buzzword’ within their organisations, much as it is acclaimed in society as a whole.

Discussion and Limitations

Academic discussion:
This research examined the interview data collected from 25 female expats who work/worked in Japanese organisations within Japan. Women are one of the main targets of diversity management in Japanese organisations, and the Japanese government and the public have encouraged female penetration into their organisations. In particular, female expats are categorised into two different groups, females and international labour, implying they are probably the most minority and challenging group in comparison to other targeted groups. We can see in this research how both government and society (media) acknowledge the importance of a diversity management and believe it to be a successful tool to bring about good results in terms of employees’ performance and commitment, as well as organisations’ public identity. But one of the research questions in this study was to what extent is this widely acknowledged strategy actually working to help female expats. In the Japanese context, it appears that there is still an embedded prejudice among local employees about both females and expats. Following the action guidelines proposed by the government, the three actions—reforming employment processes, readiness of local senior staff, and career development for female expats—were examined, based on interview data with the female expats.
 
It can be seen that while Japanese organisations have tried to increase the number women in general and female expats, and female expats themselves acknowledge that diversity management is well advertised within their organisations, there has been little or no change in the ratio of senior positions occupied by men. This point was also suggested by Alcantara and Shinohara (2022) and Oguchi (2020).
 
Once the detail of diversity management within organisations was explored, a different picture came to the surface. In terms of the employment circumstance, participants generally agreed that pay and promotion are lower and slower than for male counterparts, including male expats. The same findings were indicated by Yorozu (2022) who discussed more broadly about expats in Japan, but the comparison here between female and male expats implies that gender seems to matter for Japanese organisations. As institutional theory supposes, there has been very limited transformation for female expats from an HR point of view. The level of change may depend on each firm/industry, which past studies (e.g., Alcantara and Shinohara, 2022) suggest, but in the case of the ten industries occupied by the participants in this research, there seems to be no change in the HR systems for pay, promotion, and work-life balance. Kato and Kodama (2015) argue that the adoption of performance-based pay under gender equality causes more strict assessment of women, leading to a lower ratio of females in senior positions. This study however suggests that performance-based pay is rarely even part of the HR systems at the moment.
 
As to the readiness level of senior managers for diversity management, this could be individual to each firm/industry, as past studies indicate. Having said that, there are generally prejudices concerning females and female expats, who are not expected to work as professionally as their male counterparts. Senior staff’s awareness appears to be lower than that for which the government guidelines aim. It is unfortunate that all of the interviewees have either left their jobs or had to accept very limited development of their careers, skills, and hopes due to being offered less critical/challenging tasks than men. The lack of female role models is also demotivating for female expats. In the three guidelines proposed by the government, the findings commonly show that a male-oriented working environment remains, as Song et al. (2021) argue. Kirton and Greene (2007) argue that differences must be welcomed by organisations under a diversity concept; yet in the Japanese context it seems to be difficult for organisations to legitimate differences. Also, the strategy is important to retain skilled expats, as suggested by Kirton and Greene (2010), but the Japanese strategy might not consider this aspect because the current view of organisations is more related to how female expats should adjust to the current system than the other way around, as Liff indicated (1999). Thus, it cannot yet be said that diversity management in Japanese organisations is helping female expats.
 
Critical realism and the narrative-management concept try to appreciate the mechanisms behind events through questioning the superficial numbers and messages (Archer, 1998; Froud et al., 2006). Their angle is important, as it is not easy to see the reality of a situation from the outside. This critical thinking raises another research question: how much a diversity management discourse reflects actual practices in Japanese organisations with regard to their female expats. This research cannot say whether Japanese diversity management as a whole has been going well or not. Instead, it shows how it is perceived by female expats. Given the testimony, it appears that diversity management is ambiguous and little occurs beneath the production of a trendy top-level strategy. There appears to be a gap between what the public, Japanese organisations, and expats believe is occurring, and what is actually implemented in terms of the three action guidelines from the government. Diversity management might be viewed as a successful strategy from the outside, but not from the inside. In this sense, as Webb (1977) and Liff (1999) argue, the strategy could work better for organisational image than it does for the people it is designed to help.
 
Limitations and practical Implications:
Having said that, this research has focused only on a limited target group and a small number of cases. Also, only three action guidelines from the government list were examined. These limitations need to be covered by the future research.
 
Diversity management will not be implemented successfully if local employees reject the idea of diversity. Foster and Harris (2006) and Ashley (2010) argued that there was strong resistance among employees to the new agenda directed by the top management. This research, a decade on, does not indicate resistance/disagreement from local staff, but this angle could be examined further based on more on local individual perceptions, to understand why diversity has not progressed as much as it could have done. Simultaneously, it is necessary to listen to individual voices when carrying out new strategies, especially when welcoming a new group of workers into the Japanese workplace, where previously the workforce was almost entirely Japanese. In so doing, it is important to understand how the nature of each voice talks about the actuality. Expats, who have a different background to Japanese native staff, tend to be frustrated by the host environment (Yorozu, 2019).
 
The reasons for the lack of change could be explored further once the limited transformation in diversity strategy is double-checked in a wider context. The meaning of diversity management from an exclusively Japanese context could be further considered as well, as the maintenance of Japanese culture is regarded as important to Japan’s heritage.

References

Alcantara, L.L. and Shinohara, Y. (2022) ‘Diversity and inclusion orientation in Japanese companies’, in Alcantara, L.L. and Shinohara, Y. (ed.) Diversity and Inclusion in Japan, Abington: Routledge, pp. 40-60.

Archer, M. (1998) 'Realism and morphogenesis', in Archer, S.M., Bæck, Unn-Doris K. and Skinningsrud, T. (ed.) The Morphogenesis of the Norwegian Educational System: Emergence and Development from a Critical Realist Perspective, London: Routledge.

Ashley, L. (2010) ‘Making a difference? The use (and abuse) of diversity management at the UK’s elite law firms,’ Work, Employment and Society, 24(4), pp. 711–727.

Bassett-Jones, N. (2005) ‘The Paradox of Diversity Management, Creativity and Innovation’, Creativity and innovation management, 14(2), pp. 169-175.

Bhaskar, R. (1989) Reclaiming reality: a critical introduction to contemporary philosophy, New York: Verso.

Billing, Y.D. and Sundin, E. (2006) From managing equality to managing diversity: a critical Scandinavian perspective on gender and workplace diversity. in Konrad, A.N., Prasad, P. and Pringle, J.K (ed.) Handbook of Workplace Diversity. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 95-120.

Buchanan, D.A. and Huczynski, A.A. (2019). Organizational Behaviour, Harlow, England: Pearson.

DiMaggio, P. J. and Powell, W.W. (1983) ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields’, American Sociological Review, 48(2), pp.147-160.

Diamond Online (2022) なぜ、企業はダイバーシティ＆インクルージョンを推進しているのか？(Why have Japanese firms proceeded their diversity management?) Available at: https://diamond.jp/articles/-/295898?page=6 (Accessed:  11 February 2024).

Endo, T., Delbridge, R. and Morris, J. (2015) ‘Does Japan still matter? Past tendencies and future opportunities in the study of Japanese firms’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 17(1), pp.101-123.

Foster, C. and Harris, L. (2006) ‘Easy to say, difficult to do: diversity management in retail’, Human Resource Management Journal, 15(3), pp.4–17.

Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A. and Williams, K. (2006) Financialization and Strategy, Narrative and Numbers, London: Routledge.

Hands, D.W. (2001) Reflection without rules: economic methodology and contemporary science theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hodgson, P. (1997) ‘Realism and quantum mechanics’, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 11(1), pp.53-65.

Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (2021). Female in managerial positions Available at: https://www.jil.go.jp/kokunai/blt/backnumber/2022/10/ (Accessed: 10 January 2024).

Kato, T. and Kodama, N. (2015) Performance-related Pay and Productivity: Evidence from Japan, RIETI, Available at: https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/15070019.html (Accessed: 3 March 2024).

———(2023) Work-Life Balance Practices, Performance-Related Pay, and Gender Equality in the Workplace: Evidence from Japan. IZA Discussion Paper No. 9379, Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2672165 (Accessed:10 December 2023).  

Kirton, G. and Greene, A. (2010) ‘What does diversity management mean for the gender equality project in the United Kingdom? Views and experiences of organizational “actors”’, Canadian journal of administrative sciences, 27(3), pp.249-262.

Liff, S. (1999) ‘Diversity and Equal Opportunities: Room for a Constructive Compromise?’, Human Resources Management Journal, 9(1), pp.65-75.

Maki, U. (1996) ‘Scientific Realism and Some Peculiarities of Economics’, in Cohen,  R.S., Hilpinen, R. and Renzong, Q. (ed.) Realism and Anti-Realism in the Philosophy of Science, Dordrecht: Kluwer academic publishers, pp. 425-445.

Maxwell, G. (2004) ‘Minority report: taking the initiative in managing diversity in BBC Scotland’, Employee Relations, 26(2), pp.182-202.

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2021a) Management method to utilise diversity, Available at:  https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/economy/jinzai/diversity/turutebiki.pdf (Accessed: 30 January 2024).

———(2021b) Diversity management. Best 100 firms, Available at: https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/economy/jinzai/diversity/kigyo100sen/ (Accessed: 10 January 2024).

———(2023) Diversity Management, Available at: https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/economy/jinzai/diversity/index.html (Accessed: 11 February 2024).

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2024) Foreign workers in Japan, Available at: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_37084.html (Accessed: 12 January 2024).

———(no date) Flexitime system, Available at: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/www2/topics/seido/kijunkyoku/flextime/980908time01.htm#:~:text= (Accessed: 10 December 2023).

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (2023) White paper on land, infrastructure, transport and toruism, Available at: https://www.mlit.go.jp/hakusyo/mlit/r02/hakusho/r03/html/n1232000.html (Accessed:  31 May 2024).

Morris, J., Delbridge, R. and Endo, T. (2018) ‘The layering of meso-level institutional effects on employment systems in Japan’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(3), pp. 603-630.

NHK (2023) Managerial position by Japanese women is 12.7%: relatively lower status from international comparison, Available at: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20230731/k10014148061000.html (Accessed 31 May, 2024).

Oguchi, C. (2020) Examples of countermeasures for gender equality issues in the field of geoscience and science and engineering in Japan, 20th EGU General Assembly, EGU2018, Proceedings from the conference held 4-13 April, 2018 in Vienna, Austria, p.18807.

Rikunabi (2024) Flexitime system, Search result, Available at: https://job.rikunabi.com/2024/s/_______30__/ (Accessed 10 December 2023).

Sayer, R. A. (1995) Radical political economy: a critique, Oxford: Blackwell.

———(1997) ‘Essentialism, social constructionism, and beyond’, The Sociological Review, 45(3), pp.453-487.
Schoo (2023) What is a diversity management?, Available at: https://schoo.jp/biz/column/1439 (Accessed: 10 January 2024).

Song, W., Abe, N., Oguchi, C. T., Sakanoi, K. and Hori, R. (2021) Current Status and Future Prospects of Diversity in Japan: A view as members of the JpGU Committee for diversity management and talent pool. AGU Fall Meeting 2021, held in New Orleans, LA, 13-17 December 2021.

Tienari, J., Katila, S. and Benschop, Y. (2009) ‘Diversity management versus gender equality: the finnish case’, Canadian journal of administrative sciences, 26(3), pp.230-243.

Toyokeizai (2013) Diversity management and its best cases 200, Available at: https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/14131 (Accessed: 10 January 2024).

Webb, J. (1997) ‘The Politics of Equal Opportunity. Gender’, Work and Organization, 4(3), pp.159-169.

Yorozu, C. (2019) ‘How comfortably does international labour fit in to Japanese firms?: Unique cultural adjustment and its difficulties’, electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies, 19 (1). Available at:  https://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol19/iss1/yorozu.html

———(2022). Expatriates in Japanese Firms: Experiences and Expectations of Workers from China and Vietnam, Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

Article copyright Chie Yorozu.

Back to top