Chazen Article

In America, entrepreneurship is often seen as the manifestation of our most positive cultural ideals: social and economic mobility; great risk bringing great reward; the common man's ability to shape the world around him. One only has to look at the entrepreneurs we hold up as heroes (from Thomas Edison to Estee Lauder to Bill Gates) to recognize the esteem in which we hold those who risk it all to follow a dream.

Globally that view of entrepreneurship is not always the case. Imagine instead a country that starkly valued stability over risk, where capital without collateral was nearly impossible to come by, and where choosing to strike out on your own could invite disdain from your colleagues and bring distress to your significant other, parents and relatives. Unfortunately, this is similar to the environment in which entrepreneurs in Japan operate daily, as well as some of the challenges faced by the panel of businessmen who spoke at the 11th Annual Mitsui USA Symposium panel, Entrepreneurship in Japan.

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