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Gerteis, Christopher (2012) 'Marketing History as Social Responsibility.' In: Gerteis, Christopher and George, Timothy S., (eds.), Japan since 1945: from Postwar to Post-Bubble. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 223-241.

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Abstract

This chapter examines the role that historical narrative plays in the public relations agenda of corporate Japan. Executives of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) have been intensely concerned about public perception of the company’s place in history since the early twentieth century. Like most member companies of Japan’s twentieth century keiretsu (corporate conglomerates that included Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo), NYK regularly published, before and after the war, official histories as a means of enhancing corporate prestige and brand image as well as to ameliorate lingering memories of the organization’s links to less pleasant aspects of the recent past. As a result, company history narratives, like many tropes of national history, often obscure more than they illuminate about the corporate subject. In particular, the chapter unpacks the way in which corporate history narratives have been interwoven with philanthropic initiatives, so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, in part developed to rehabilitate corporate reputation and enhance public perception of the [private] enterprise.

Item Type: Book Chapters
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > School of History, Religions & Philosophies > Department of History
Regional Centres and Institutes > SOAS Japan Research Centre
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Department of History
ISBN: 9781441101181
Date Deposited: 08 Mar 2012 14:21
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/13209
Related URLs: http://site.ebr ... ID=10632587&p00

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