Sony

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Readers should be thankful that the most thorough history of Sony yet written comes from a writer steeped in Japanese culture rather than in business. Nathan, a professor of Japanese cultural studies at UC-Santa Barbara, gives a human dimension to the Japanese electronics giant, especially to its cofounders, Masaru Ibuka (the dreamer) and Akio Morita (the pragmatist), who, according to Ibuka's son, were linked by a bond of friendship and collegiality that made them "closer than lovers." Nathan had the full cooperation of Sony, including access to top officials and archives. Yet this is no puff-piece, but rather a fascinating account of how Sony succeeded despite such setbacks as the failure of Betamax and the disastrous $4.7 billion purchase of Columbia Pictures. At the center of the story are Ibuka and Morita, who strove to make Sony accepted and respected beyond Japan, especially in the U.S. Some of the most absorbing--and even poignant--sections concern the cultural divide between Japan and America. Nathan focuses on the interpersonal relationships among the company's leaders to examine what made the company tick. In addition to the interplay between Ibuka and Morita, Nathan documents the rise of Norio Ohga as the successor to the cofounders and also devotes a considerable amount of time to the relationship between Ohga and Mickey Schulhof, the highest-ranking American Sony officer before he was fired by the current Sony president Nobuyuki Idei. By mixing interviews with Sony executives with his own insights, Nathan provides readers with a thorough and entertaining history of the company that rose out of the ashes of WWII to embody Japan's postwar resurrection. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Nathan, a professor of Japanese cultural studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, received open access from the Sony Corporation for this history. He traces the company from its beginnings at the end of World War II to the present, providing an intimate, meticulously detailed account of how upper management made its decisions. Profiles of major players like founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka, members of the inner circle such as Mickey Schulof and Harvey Schein, and present chairman Norio Ohga and president Nobuyuki Idei give the reader an understanding of the motivations behind Sony Corporation's successful innovations, like the Walkman and compact-disc technology, and failures, like the Betamax and the purchase of Columbia Pictures. Nathan also provides ample insight into how the Japanese do business. A good choice for large public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/99.]--Steven J. Mayover, Free Lib. of Philadelphia Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

I still remember my exhilaration when Sony's tiny, matte-black "Pixy" audio system arrived in my small, tatami-covered room in Japan one January afternoon in the late 1980s. The look and feel of the stereo was perfect for my teenage scheme to make the place look like a Manhattan studio. Ten years later, the stereo rests on the wood floor of my apartment in California, but continues to entertain me day and night.

Sony's ability to manufacture the hippest new products, from the Walkman to the new Glasstron head-mounted computer screen, is only part of the story in Sony: The Private Life. Author, Japan scholar and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker John Nathan documents intimate corporate dramas that might have remained hidden from an American lacking his language proficiency and understanding of often-misinterpreted Japanese culture and business practices.

Contrary to popular belief, many Japanese are actually quite frank among themselves, although most outsiders only see the public face of formality and aversion to embarrassment. It's a tribute to Nathan that he was able to get Sony's execs to reveal the world of intrigue among cofounders Masao Ibuka and Akio Morita, as well as their successors.

Nathan recreates such historic public events as the unveiling of Sony's breakthrough Trinitron color TV technology and its $6 billion acquisition of Columbia Pictures in 1989, which came amid a parade of Japanese corporate takeovers. But he also reveals such private episodes as cofounder Masaru Ibuka's troubles in his first marriage.

People who have lived in both Japan and America are sure to identify with the stories about Sony America. The author details how Harvey Schein, whom Morita recruited from CBS Records to be Sony's first American employee, failed to learn the very Japanese, emotion-based way of making decisions, and instead perpetuated an unsentimental, often abrasive American-style business culture based on logic alone. When Schein bruised egos, it terrified Japanese executives, although his self-described "hard-ass" management style often helped to bring delinquent customers in line.

Nathan also describes Schein's ultimately unsuccessful bid to change Sony's pricing structure after discovering that some divisions were losing money in the U.S. He concluded that the problem lay in product pricing originating in Tokyo, where corporate taxes were much higher than in the States. Schein then argued that Sony should sell products at a higher price in Japan to save corporate taxes and diminish profit margins, and at a lower price in the U.S. to save customs duties and increase profits. His plan fell apart when he met with resistance in Japan. His Japanese counterpart refused to implement Schein's scheme, maintaining that decreasing profits at the parent company to pass on savings to Sony America was "out of the question"; the company's credibility with Japanese banks was contingent on its high profitability there.

Sony's painful effort to create a truly global culture within its family of businesses reached a crossroads when current chairman and former CEO Norio Ohga selected someone from the new generation – Nobuyuki Idei – to succeed him as president and CEO. Idei was a surprise choice to many in Tokyo, who regarded him as a nontechnical "heretic" in Sony's corporate culture. The son of an affluent, globe-trotting economics professor, Idei studied in Europe and managed Sony's European operation for six years, acting on his own initiative and growing increasingly distant from headquarters.

Idei is presented as a man who comfortably digests huge helpings of such disparate economic theories as Nicholas Negroponte's "world of bits," Claude Levi-Strauss' "semantic borders" and Michael Porter's "value chains." He is also someone who struggles to balance his vision of new media with Sony's traditional practices.

Idei is now preparing Sony for what he calls "the network-centric era," Nathan writes. As the first step, last April he realigned Sony's 10 electronics companies into three new business divisions: the home network company, the personal IT network company, and the core technology and network company. He then relocated the units away from corporate headquarters, gave each its own R&D lab, and set up an independent board and management committee.

Although it might be natural for Sony to "engineer a discontinuity of the company's 50-year history" to face the challenges of the new economy, writes Nathan, it's unclear what that will mean for its visionary cofounders' painstakingly crafted global mentality. In the aftermath of Morita's death Oct. 3, the Japanese business press declared the end of Sony as we've know it. The new Sony that Nathan so skillfully documents can now fully emerge.

– Michiyo Yamada

Kirkus Reviews

A corporate biography that explores the complex, talented people who made a major company successful. Sony has a unique place in American culture, a brand name that is instantly recognizable and inexorably tied to the modern age of consumer electronics. Here readers may discover its modest beginnings in the ravaged industrial landscape of postwar Japan. Two major forces combined to make this happen: Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, singular personalities in a culture not known for individuality. They developed a powerful bond of friendship and a working relationship that survived disagreements and difficulties; later, other equally significant leaders emerged to help shape and propel the company. Nathan (Mishima: A Biography, not reviewed), an expert on modern Japanese culture (UC, Santa Barbara), not only recognizes and delicately profiles the human power behind Sony, he creates a masterful portrait of individuals working together—and occasionally at odds—to generate new products and businesses, including a few clunkers. Nathan also credits Sony for its pioneering work bridging the geographical and cultural gaps—defining consumers as well as businesses—between its home country and the US. Morita, more so than anyone, achieved this goal with the force of personality and perseverance. As the author suggests, critical differences between Japanese and American business cultures may never be fully erased, but readers will find here a sensitive exploration of what lies underneath the Sony corporate surface, particularly the force of loyalty and personal bonds. Also engaging are the adventures of some American executives who fell under the spell and employment of Sonyafter they were brought on board to impart American-style business practices. The author, who had the full cooperation of the company during his research, acknowledges that he sometimes got more than he expected in the candid disclosures of present and former employees. Insightful, probing, and extremely well-written; in the genre of business and company profiles, this is as good as it gets. (Author tour)