Diversity Management to Enhance the Competitiveness of Enterprises (Diversity Report) Published

1．Background

METI defines diversity management as “management for generating innovations to create value by utilizing the diversity of human resources and bringing out their maximum abilities,” and is encouraging companies to implement measures for diversity management.

Companies have been making progress in the establishment of systems to empower diverse personnel to demonstrate their abilities, but many of them are finding it difficult to leverage this implementation to enhance their corporate value. 

Amid dramatic changes in the global business environment and the supply structure of the labor market, homogenous organizations in which personnel cannot fully demonstrate their diverse knowledge and experience tend to lack the ability to respond flexibly to changes. Therefore, those organizations face risks that make it difficult for them to succeed in competition on a medium- to long-term basis and have limited access to business opportunities that they can grasp.

Based on this recognition, METI launched the study forum on corporate management leveraging diversity for business competitiveness with a view to promoting discussions on measures to attain achievements in business and increase corporate value through diversity management and to clarifying the management approach desirable for Japanese companies and the practical methods to take that approach. This study forum had a total of four meetings to examine these issues.  

Based on the discussions conducted by the study forum, METI compiled the Diversity Management to Enhance the Competitiveness of Enterprises (Diversity Report) to present the approach for diversity management that will help companies increase their corporate value as well as the specific measures to be implemented by the companies to this end.

2．Outline of the Diversity Report

The readers targeted by the Diversity Report include the boards of directors, the presidents/CEOs and other top management executives and those in charge of diversity management at companies that aim to generate innovations as well as companies that need to increase their international competitiveness.

The Report sets out the challenges faced by companies when working on diversity management and the actions that will help them meet such challenges, regarding diversity as a means to enhance the competitiveness of companies. Specifically, the Report comprises the following items:

• Message to top management
  The Report lists actual examples to brief the boards of directors as well as presidents/CEOs and other top management executives on reasons why diversity needs to be promoted to enhance the competitiveness of their companies.
• Solutions to problems faced by management team members with regard to the promotion of diversity
  The report presents the perspective of diversity management and help management team members enhance the competitiveness of their company, thereby giving solutions to the problems that they face regarding the need to foster diversity from the viewpoint of corporate management. 
• Problems faced when working on diversity management and measures to enhance competitiveness through diversity management
  The report also indicates the specific actions to be taken by companies, thereby helping directors and others in charge of diversity management meet the problems that they face when implementing specific measures.

3．Report（in Japanese）

• Diversity Management to Enhance the Competitiveness of Enterprises (Diversity Report)(PDF:5,072KB)
• (Attachment 1) Specific actions to be taken by companies (Diversity 2.0 Action Guidelines ) Comparison table of old and new versions(PDF:1,395KB)

Related Links（in Japanese）

• Study forum on corporate management leveraging diversity for business competitiveness
• Promotion of diversity management by METI

Division in Charge

Economic and Social Policy Office, Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau