On September 2, 2015, Dr. Tatsuo Mori of the Faculty of Humanities at Hirosaki University, gave us a lecture entitled “Business Management in the Global Era”.

　According to the world competitiveness ranking of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Japanese companies were in first place in 1990. However, they dropped to 27th place in 2015.

　In 2030, when the present high school students will become 32 years old, where will they be working? With whom? “Mr.○○ who lives in front of us is getting a job in Indonesia.” “The new co-worker in the sales section is from Myanmar.” Those situations might be normal. According to the survey conducted by the Japan Business Federation, more and more companies reply, “We want to employ talented people regardless of nationality.” It seems that the times when companies employ only Japanese are over.

　As a new way of living, the number of Japanese who start a business abroad will increase. Now there are Japanese who have started various businesses overseas, for instance, that import and sell used cars in Tanzania, run a rice ball café in San Francisco, cultivate herbs in Cambodia, and so on.

　For workers, “the ability to work in a group”, “a challenging mind”, “the ability to understand different cultures”, “a strong mind”, and “linguistic ability” are required from now on.

Dr. Tatsuo Mori of the Faculty of Humanities at Hirosaki University