A Self-Defining Organization | Ikuyo Kaneko (Dean, Graduate School of Media and Governance)
2007.12.20
What image comes to mind when people hear the term “academic society”? There are likely many different views, such as “an academic authority,” “a place for debating abstract theories that are useless to the world,” or “a disgraceful bunch who authorize themselves.” Perhaps all of these opinions have an element of truth.
Of course, when it comes to academic societies, there are all kinds, from distinguished ones to those that no one pays attention to. In reality, anyone can create one. As long as you have an administrative office and members, you can simply declare, “We are the so-and-so academic society.”
Peter Drucker, known in Japan as the “god of management,” astutely observed of NPOs as management entities that “their characteristic is being self-defining.” Companies are organizations created to make a profit, so a company that fails to make a profit will disappear, and a company with large profits is a “good company.” Since the goal of an NPO is not profit maximization, it must declare its own mission, such as, “We will solve this particular social problem.” Drucker summed up this situation in that one phrase.
Academic societies, being non-profit organizations, do not inherently possess authority. They establish their significance by being evaluated by their relevant communities for the missions they set for themselves and the social results they produce in line with those missions. Come to think of it, modern companies, too, are now being questioned about their social significance; simply making a profit is no longer enough.
“Social entrepreneurship”—the practice of solving social problems while maintaining a solid business model—has recently been gaining attention in Japan. SFC has produced many young social entrepreneurs and has been a pioneer among Japanese universities in establishing related courses and research groups. To put it in Drucker’s terms, they are like amphibious vehicles: possessing the autonomy to define their own mission while having their business viability heteronomously evaluated by the market. The fact that they are now beginning to play an active role globally suggests that our world has become that much more diverse and complex.
(Posted on: 2007/12/20)