Perspective Index in Company X from 2004–2013

Abstract: The perspective index (Takahashi, 2014) was tested in a company that has been successful in the process of organizational reform, Company X. An exhaustive survey (Survey X) for all employees was conducted once a fiscal year from 2004 to 2013. According to Survey X, over 13,000 employees showed near-perfect linearity between perspective index and job satisfaction ratio/turnover candidate ratio. Each occupational and rank category also showed a near-straight line, although the values greatly varied per year before and after organizational reform. However, the incline and intercept points of the lines somewhat differed contingent on the occupational and rank category. This might explain the difference between data from Survey X and that of the JPC Survey conducted in Takahashi (2014).Keywords: leaning on future principle, perspective index, job satisfaction, turnover1. IntroductionAt present, many Japanese firms are enduring highly competitive environments to make profit and are tight fisted in terms of paying salaries and dividends. Even if they do not provide accountability, they unfailingly reserve profits internally for investments in further expansion (Takahashi, 2013). Takahashi (1996a, 1996b, 2013) states that this behavior follows the "leaning on future principle," a decision principle using which people choose a better future rather than act on present mercenary motives based on the past results.According to Takahashi (2013), even in the 1990s Japanese companies hardly applied the discount rate in investment decisions, whereas American companies rapidly adopted the discount rate method of valuation since the 1960s (Kim 8s Farragher, 1981; Klammer, 1972). This behavior of Japanese companies also holds for the leaning on future principle, because if Takahashi's (2013) future parameter1 w is any less than 1, even a large profit earned 10 or 20 years later will be almost nil after being multiplied by w10 or w20. Accordingly, even though the expectation values of "long-term profit" will definitely converge, it is similar to focusing on near-future profits and ignoring distant-future profits. If the future parameter w = 1, the divergence of the expected profit makes nonsense of discount rate methods, such as the use of net present value (NPV) when making investment decisions. This is the case of Japanese companies having a high future parameter w » 1. Under such circumstances, we witness "The Ant and the Grasshopper" (Aesop's Fable) phenomenon in everyday life.Abegglen's "lifetime commitment" between a company and an employee-the company will not discharge him even temporarily except in the most extreme circumstances. He will not quit the company for industrial employment elsewhere (Abegglen, 1958, p. 11)2-is an example of future parameter w » 1. In this situation, cooperation can easily occur even between mutual enemies (Axelrod, 1984).3 This is seen in labor union cooperation between capital and labor in Japanese companies.The present paper uses the perspective index developed by Takahashi (1996a) to conduct Survey X, an annual survey conducted ten times at Company X, which has been successful in organizational reform. This paper also compares this data with that of the JPC Survey used in Takahashi (2014).2. Change of Company XSurvey X is an exhaustive survey for all employees of Company X and conducted once a fiscal year. The questionnaires were distributed at the same time to all the employees and collected once filled (placement method). Like Takahashi, Ohkawa, and Inamizu (2014, in press), this paper uses data gathered over ten years, that is, from the fiscal years 2004-2013. The survey was conducted in October 2004, September 2005, and February from 2007 to 2013. Data from 13,230 out of 13,383 surveys distributed were collected during the ten-year period, which mean response rate is 98.9%.The most dramatic change during the ten-year duration of Survey X was the restructuring of the company between 2005 and 2006. …


Introduction
At present, many Japanese firms are enduring highly competitive environments to make profit and are tight fisted in terms of paying salaries and dividends. Even if they do not provide accountability, they unfailingly reserve profits internally for investments in further expansion (Takahashi, 2013). Takahashi (1996aTakahashi ( , 1996bTakahashi ( , 2013 states that this behavior follows the "leaning on future principle," a decision principle using which people choose a better future rather than act on present mercenary motives based on the past results. According to Takahashi (2013), even in the 1990s Japanese companies hardly applied the discount rate in investment decisions, whereas American companies rapidly adopted the discount rate method of valuation since the 1960s (Kim & Farragher, 1981;Klammer, 1972). This behavior of Japanese companies also holds for the leaning on future principle, because if Takahashi's (2013) future parameter 1 w is any less than 1, even a large profit earned 10 or 20 years later will be almost nil after being multiplied by w 10 or w 20 . Accordingly, even though the expectation values of "long-term profit" will definitely converge, it is similar to focusing on near-future profits and ignoring distant-future profits. If the future parameter w = 1, the divergence of the expected profit makes nonsense of discount rate methods, such as the use of net present value (NPV) when making investment decisions. This is the case of Japanese companies having a high future parameter w  1. Under such circumstances, we witness "The Ant and the Grasshopper" (Aesop's Fable) phenomenon in everyday life.
Abegglen's "lifetime commitment" between a company and an employee-the company will not discharge him even temporarily except in the most extreme circumstances. He will not quit the company for industrial employment elsewhere (Abegglen, 1958, p. 11) 2 -is an example of future parameter w  1. In this situation, cooperation can easily occur even between mutual enemies (Axelrod, 1984). 3 This is seen in labor union cooperation between capital and labor in Japanese companies.
The present paper uses the perspective index developed by Takahashi (1996a) to conduct Survey X, an annual survey conducted ten times at Company X, which has been successful in organizational reform. This paper also compares this data with that of the JPC Survey used in Takahashi (2014).

Change of Company X
Survey X is an exhaustive survey for all employees of Company X and conducted once a fiscal year. The questionnaires were distributed at the same time to all the employees and collected once filled (placement method). Like Takahashi, Ohkawa, and Inamizu (2014, in press), this paper uses data gathered over ten years, that is, Data from 13,230 out of 13,383 surveys distributed were collected during the ten-year period, which mean response rate is 98.9%.
The most dramatic change during the ten-year duration of Survey X was the restructuring of the company between 2005 and 2006.
2 Future parameter w is the probability that the next move is played in a repeated game (Axelrod, 1984). 1 − w is a specific case of stopping rule in the sequential decision process (DeGroot, 1970;Ferguson, 1967). See Takahashi (2013) for further details. 3 Although the logic of game theory dictates that the equilibrium of mutual defection in the prisoners' dilemma should remain intact in a finite number of repetitions of the game (Luce & Raiffa, 1957), experiments showed that it quickly collapsed (Pruitt & Kimmel, 1977;Rapoport & Chammah, 1965). Cooperation even evolved in computer tournaments between computer programs (Axelrod, 1980a(Axelrod, , 1980b).
This was a large-scale restructuring, in which the offices throughout the country were consolidated into one-third of the original number; workers whose offices had closed down had to transfer to another region to continue their employment with the company. year after the majority of new employees joined the company and the new system had been launched. Consequently, the first three surveys captured data from before, during, and after the major restructuring, providing the perfect opportunity to measure the effect of major organizational restructuring.
The job satisfaction ratio 4 and turnover candidate ratio are defined as the ratio of people who answered "yes" to the following questions: Q1. Are you satisfied with your job?
Q2. If given the chance, would you like to change jobs?

Perspective Index
The perspective index is a type of future parameter used in discussions on the evolution of cooperation (Takahashi, 2014). If w  1, then the future is almost as equally important as the present and it is at little discount.
Takahashi (1996a) defines the "perspective index" as the sum of scores of the following five questions as dummy variables.

Concluding Remarks
Why does the Survey X data show a slightly different incline in job satisfaction ratio and a slightly different intercept point in the turnover candidate ratio from the JPC Survey? Figures 5 and 6, which show the annual transitions in occupational category and position, suggest a reason for these differences.
As previously mentioned, significant restructuring at Company X from 2005 to 2006 caused major fluctuations in the indicators.
However, as Figures 5 and 6 show, as the perspective index drops, the job satisfaction ratio decreases and the turnover candidate ratio increases; conversely, as the perspective index rises, the job satisfaction ratio increases and the turnover candidate ratio decreases. The company experienced this dramatically in a relatively short period. Although OC2s, OC3s, chiefs and managers, to which originally only small number of respondents belong, showed slightly unstable movements away from a straight line, the overall movement on the graphs occurs along a straight line. 5 Furthermore, we also see distinctly different inclines and intercept points on the two graphs in 5 On this point, Takahashi, Ohkawa, Inamizu, and Akiike (2013) compare the perspective index and degree of self-determination using data from survey X through 2012. Even though the degree of self-determination was mostly the same before and after the organizational restructuring, the job satisfaction ratio fluctuated greatly. Thus, they note that the perspective index is more capable as an explanatory variable for job satisfaction. The nature of the degree of self-determination was again confirmed by Takahashi et al. (2014) using the same data as this paper.  Takahashi, Ohkawa, and Inamizu occupational and rank categories. In other words, differences in the incline and intercept point of the lines are due to differences in the composition ratio of occupational and rank categories.
In the Survey X data, the categories of OC1 and ordinary workers somewhat overlap as half of the respondents were in OC1, with ordinary workers accounting for 80% of the respondents. In 2013, 635 out of 1,046 ordinary workers were in OC1 (60.7%), while 635 out of 637 OC1 workers were ordinary workers (99.7%).
Consequently, ordinary and OC1 workers not only make up a large proportion of the respondents but also follow similar trends. However, OC1 is a blue-collar occupational category; these blue-collar workers