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  • April 2018
  • Case
  • HBS Case Collection

Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.

By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:30
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Abstract

Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. Recruit was built on the principle that the company should add value to society. To do this, it hired young and talented employees and created a culture of self-efficacy. In the late 1980s, Recruit hit rough waters. First, Ezoe sold 2.8 million shares in a Recruit subsidiary before it went public to 76 Japanese leaders in politics, business, and media. The "Recruit Scandal," as it was called, resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Noburu Takeshita and his entire cabinet. A few years later, Recruit was mired in debt with interest payments of 65 billion yen when its annual income was only 62 billion yen. In the early ‘90s, the development of the Internet cut into Recruit’s core businesses, which were paper-based advertising. Yet by 2017, Recruit was a global conglomerate with $16 billion in sales. This case examines Recruit’s unique corporate culture that helped it survive a scandal so large it became a staple in Japanese textbooks, as well as Recruit’s subsequent globalization.

Keywords

Business Conglomerates; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Crime and Corruption; Transition; Globalization; Japan

Citation

Sucher, Sandra J., and Shalene Gupta. "Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 318-130, April 2018.
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About The Author

Sandra J. Sucher

General Management
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Related Work

    • November 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.

    By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta
Related Work
  • Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. By: Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta
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