6 ms·

Japan has a very service oriented business culture and from what I can tell a lot of the loyalty is based on knowing the owner and their family. Is it possible

Japan has a very service oriented business culture and from what I can tell a lot of the loyalty is based on knowing the owner and their family. Is it possible so many Japanese are unwilling to take over a business because they predict that the longtime customers will feel alienated and underwhelmed by the relationship with the new owner? In other words, do potential buyers purposefully avoid taking over business because they know they cannot live up to expectations in the same way a family member can?

CobaltFire 4y ago
This is accurate; no one outside the family would have been able to use the client base.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  The usual approach is to effectively “apprentice” under the old owner as they increasingly hand over responsibility and retire. No matter what you’ll lose clients, but lose a lot less than if Alice disappears one day and Bob magically appears the next with little handover. Dunno if that could work in Japan.
  - phnofive 4y ago
    It's a thing: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-rates-majority-adult-men-a7524301.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-r...
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      It's a thing everywhere, and doesn't require adoption (or making one of your child's spouses your successor.) I know a printer right now where the owner has been working towards retiring and selling the business to his now-manager eventual-successor for a few years. The owner has reduced his work responsibilities to sales only at this point, and the goal has been to make his networks comfortable with his successor as he slips away (to live closer to his grandchildren, I bet.)
  - eloisant 4y ago
    I don't know if it's still a thing, but in Japan some business owners with no heir used to adopt adults for them to take over the business. It's like you said, starting as an apprentice, and if the owner trust him enough he'll adopt him, the apprentice litterally taking the family name of the business owner. So it's still the same family!
    - HPsquared 4y ago
      Roman emperors often worked the same way.
- threadweaver34 4y ago
  This is a bit like a lot of consumer websites. The value is in the loyal community of users.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  That doesn't sound likely in this case: the whole premise of the article is that his business is the only provider of a necessary service.
hotpotamus 4y ago
They've actually got a trick for this. > "In Japan, 98% of adoptions are actually adult men, aged between 20-30 years old — not children." > "In Japan, there is a several-hundred-year-old tradition in which businesses adopt their executives so companies or institutions are "family-run" groups. In other words, bosses adopt their employees." https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-rates-majority-adult-men-a7524301.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-r...
- danielscrubs 4y ago
  Take these things with a grain of salt. I would guess the journalist purposely hid the absolute numbers to make the article more interesting. The incentives for clicks are just too great.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    The absolute number is around 80,000 per year, which is considerable, albeit not huge compared to a population of over 100M. (For comparison, the US has about 140,000 with a 3x larger population.) The bit that is misleading is that adopting or even fostering children not related to you is vanishingly rare in Japan, nearly all orphans end up in orphanages instead.
    - eloisant 4y ago
      I think it used to be much more common in feodal Japan, not just for business owners but also in noble or samurai families to continue the "house".
- bdowling 4y ago
  > Nowadays, legal adoption of this kind is paired up with an arranged marriage — known as "omiai" — of a daughter, meaning the adopted son becomes son and son-in-law at the same time because he changes his name to the wife's family name ("mukoyoshi"). So, daughter marries son-in-law, who is "adopted" into the family and carries on the family name.

CobaltFire 4y ago

This is accurate; no one outside the family would have been able to use the client base.

Scoundreller 4y ago
The usual approach is to effectively “apprentice” under the old owner as they increasingly hand over responsibility and retire. No matter what you’ll lose clients, but lose a lot less than if Alice disappears one day and Bob magically appears the next with little handover. Dunno if that could work in Japan.
- phnofive 4y ago
  It's a thing: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-rates-majority-adult-men-a7524301.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-r...
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    It's a thing everywhere, and doesn't require adoption (or making one of your child's spouses your successor.) I know a printer right now where the owner has been working towards retiring and selling the business to his now-manager eventual-successor for a few years. The owner has reduced his work responsibilities to sales only at this point, and the goal has been to make his networks comfortable with his successor as he slips away (to live closer to his grandchildren, I bet.)
- eloisant 4y ago
  I don't know if it's still a thing, but in Japan some business owners with no heir used to adopt adults for them to take over the business. It's like you said, starting as an apprentice, and if the owner trust him enough he'll adopt him, the apprentice litterally taking the family name of the business owner. So it's still the same family!
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Roman emperors often worked the same way.
threadweaver34 4y ago
This is a bit like a lot of consumer websites. The value is in the loyal community of users.
lazyasciiart 4y ago
That doesn't sound likely in this case: the whole premise of the article is that his business is the only provider of a necessary service.

hotpotamus 4y ago

They've actually got a trick for this. > "In Japan, 98% of adoptions are actually adult men, aged between 20-30 years old — not children." > "In Japan, there is a several-hundred-year-old tradition in which businesses adopt their executives so companies or institutions are "family-run" groups. In other words, bosses adopt their employees." https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-rates-majority-adult-men-a7524301.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/japanese-adoption-r...

danielscrubs 4y ago
Take these things with a grain of salt. I would guess the journalist purposely hid the absolute numbers to make the article more interesting. The incentives for clicks are just too great.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  The absolute number is around 80,000 per year, which is considerable, albeit not huge compared to a population of over 100M. (For comparison, the US has about 140,000 with a 3x larger population.) The bit that is misleading is that adopting or even fostering children not related to you is vanishingly rare in Japan, nearly all orphans end up in orphanages instead.
  - eloisant 4y ago
    I think it used to be much more common in feodal Japan, not just for business owners but also in noble or samurai families to continue the "house".
bdowling 4y ago
> Nowadays, legal adoption of this kind is paired up with an arranged marriage — known as "omiai" — of a daughter, meaning the adopted son becomes son and son-in-law at the same time because he changes his name to the wife's family name ("mukoyoshi"). So, daughter marries son-in-law, who is "adopted" into the family and carries on the family name.