The Creation of a Corporate Philosophy in a Japanese E-Commerce Company: A Case Study of Rakuten

The purpose of this chapter is to clarify how a corporate philosophy is created and how it works in the corporate culture at a company succeeded in globalization. Our research subject is Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company. Rakuten is a leading company of Internet services in Japan, and since it adopted English as its official language, it attracted the attention of those interested in corporate globalization. To describe the process whereby Rakuten created its corporate philosophy, we referred to the books written by Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani and documents related to Rakuten’s corporate philosophy. We also interviewed several employees who have been working on Rakuten’s system development for more than 10 years and asked them what globalization and Englishnization brought about. The survey revealed that Rakuten’s corporate philosophy is a system of values, the mission, and practices, which is called “Rakuten Shugi” (Rakuten basic principles). Rakuten has developed its own values created through practices, and it has updated its mission over time, and thus Rakuten Shugi operates as a guide to adapt to the rapidly changing Internet environment.