Matsuwaki is from the Shitennoji University of Osaka, Japan and works in the Accounting and Auditing department.
The first seminar, “Company Risk Management – Considerations from the Great East Japan Earthquake,” was not one sided as Matsuwaki and SLCC CSIS professor Susumu Kasai prompted discussion at various points.
Matsuwaki focused on how the Japanese people avoid noticing risk due to the confidence in their safety, how this perception was broken after the tsunami and earthquake of 2011 and how it translates to accounting and auditing in Japanese business.
Matsuwaki explained Japan’s safe society concept, how it is wrong in the culture to be suspicious of other people without evidence and the Japanese value of harmony.
The problems are that people trust too much that nothing bad will happen since it hasn’t already happened before, which explains their unpreparedness when struck by the East Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Watsuwaki-san and Kasai presented various scenarios in which Japanese companies corrected their errors by way of disciplining or firing employees or destroying product to ensure quality for the consumer.
These situations prompted discussion between Kasai and Matsuwaki and the audience, asking how these actions and situations would’ve been handled in U.S. culture.
One example of difference was that firing an employee for stealing product was considered extreme in Japan in comparison of disciplining and talking to the employee instead.
Matsuwaki connected the subjects to company risk management explaining how auditing is seen as shameful to Japanese companies. Audits give reason to shareholders to be suspicious of practices and Matsuwaki hopes to separate shame from that practice in Japan.
The Faculty Exchange Seminar is presented by Faculty Services, Study Abroad, and the Faculty Teaching & Learning Center.
