Developing a yen to do the right thing.

• Author: Chapman, Dan
• Position: Japanese companies in North Carolina - Includes related article

Japanese companies discover that doing business in North Carolina is often a matter of give and take.

Konica executive Masanori Ishiko thought he'd heard it all when it came to local groups asking for corporate handouts.

After all, he had spent 25 years with Japanese companies, working in places as varied as New Zealand, New Jersey, London and Indonesia. Unlike many less-traveled Japanese businessmen, Ishiko had embraced the American concept of good corporate citizenship. Since his arrival in Greensboro earlier this year, Ishiko, a vice president at Konica Manufacturing U.S.A., had agreed to company donations to local schools, the United Way, a campaign against multiple sclerosis and welcome-home ceremonies for Desert Storm troops.

Ishiko was no Scrooge. But he had enough flint in him to draw the line at a request for favors for a family reunion.

"A family member wanted us to give Frisbees to the kids," Ishiko, 51, says. "We turned them down. I don't know why they asked Konica to give Frisbees."

Perhaps few North Carolina business people have had to turn down solicitations quite so bold as this. Still, like their counterparts in other states, Tar Heel executives are used to requests for charity. But for Japanese who are new to the United States, such queries can be an unpleasant surprise.

In Japan, corporate philanthropy is virtually unheard of. Caring for the less fortunate is the job of government and of families, who are expected to shoulder the responsibility. Companies take care of their own, providing lifetime employment, housing, pensions and, in some cases, spouses.

"There are still many Japanese companies working in this state who wonder, 'Why are we doing these community-support activities?'" says Ishiko, who's in charge of planning and logistics. "Among Japanese workers here at Konica, to a certain degree, they are not comfortable with spending so much money on this. Some people in the company deem this action nonsense."

But at Japanese companies operating in North Carolina, many are realizing that community support is a cost of doing business. Just as American executives must learn the unwritten rules of commerce in Japan -- everything from the subtleties of presenting a business card to late-night drinking sessions -- Japanese executives are finding that their host state has house rules that international guests are expected to follow.

"My view is that the Japanese in the United States are starting to recognize that volunteerism and philanthropy are part of our culture," says James Weeks, dean of the Bryan School of Business and Economics at UNC-Greensboro. "If they are going to be assimilated and be accepted in the United States, they are going to have to adapt to that."

Corporate citizenship is a recent phenomenon for the Japanese, says John Sylvester Jr., director of the North Carolina Japan Center in Raleigh. "The Japanese have been more or less criticized for only making money in the United States and not for contributing to the community. Japanese companies are now anxious to be well-accepted in the United States."

For the Japanese, there are extra hurdles to clear. These may be the days of a Nintendo in every den and two Hondas in every garage, but some Americans haven't forgotten Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 -- 50 years ago next month. As representatives of the only nation in modern times to...