ABSTRACT
A Japanese manager of a Japanese multinational corporation experiences
‘globalisation’ at many levels during his typical five-year posting at a subsidiary abroad. As suggested in Chapter 2, with his compatriots at home he
has been subjected to the rising profile of ‘globalisation’ in the public
media. Interpreted as a matter of corporate ideology it might also appear as
news in semi-private, in-house media, both as synopses of the chief execu-
tive officer’s thinking on the corporation’s global future, as well as data in
articles on its extensive projects abroad. At corporate ceremonies at a
French subsidiary it might appear in a speech by a visiting corporate ‘biggy’
(a high-level executive) from Japan – delivered in English translation to 130 French employees on the day shift, and their eight Japanese colleagues – to
commemorate production of the ten millionth videocassette. These, then,
are examples of globalisation as rhetoric in two separate but, of course,
complementary arenas: public and corporate.
