Human-centered sustainability management

A case study of Tsurukichi Hatano

Abstract

Modern society faces many challenges. Globalization and innovation accelerated economic growth, but at the same time, caused serious environmental and social problems such as global warming, resource depletion, and widening inequalities. And now we are facing the new problem of a global pandemic infection. In response, many companies are strengthening corporate governance, fulfilling corporate social responsibility (CSR) and creating shared value (CSV). Efforts aimed at realizing a sustainable society, that modern society is pursuing, were actually promoted by many entrepreneurs of Japanese companies in the Meiji era. In this article, using a business history approach, we reviewed Tsurukichi Hatano, the founder of Gunze Limited. Hatano devoted himself to achieving the well-being of his employees and people in the community throughout his life. Hatano set a spirit of altruism as a corporate mission for his company, and solved various trade-offs of conflicting management issues such as quality improvement of silk products, customer satisfaction, employee motivation, integration with local communities, and profit earning. Thus, he successfully laid the foundation for a local small enterprise to grow into one of today's leading apparel manufacturers. We learn many lessons from Hatano's philosophy and behavior, which always cherished people even in difficult situations.