The line ladder at a large Japanese company runs roughly as follows. Shunin is a senior staff member or team lead. Kakaricho supervises a small group. Kacho heads a section and is usually the first management rank. Many companies have a deputy step before it, such as kacho dairi. Jicho is a deputy department head, bucho heads a department, and honbucho heads a division of several departments.
Above that sit the officers. Shikko yakuin, executive officer, is a company title with no basis in the Companies Act. Torishimariyaku, director, is a statutory board seat. Directors are ranked among themselves: jomu (usually rendered managing director), senmu (senior managing director), fuku shacho (executive vice president), shacho (president, normally the chief executive) and kaicho (chairman). Retired top executives often stay on as sodanyaku or komon, advisers.
Only the director-level titles are defined in law. Everything else is set by each company, so the same title can mean very different things. A title also sits on top of a separate grade, so some people carry a bucho-level title without running a department.
What it means for a foreign employer
- Map on scope, not title. Ask about headcount, budget, reporting line and grade. A kacho at a major manufacturer may run more people than a director at a small foreign subsidiary.
- Watch the word "director". In a Japanese company it usually means a board member. In a foreign company it often maps to bucho. Offering "Manager" to a sitting bucho reads as a demotion.
- "Managing director" is not a country head. A jomu is a mid-ranking board director. Do not assume the title on an English business card means what it would in London or Sydney.
- Titles are cheap and matter. Candidates, their families and their clients notice titles. A title adjustment can close a gap that pay alone cannot.
- A lower title is a loss of standing, and nobody will say so. A bucho of 15 years will rarely accept a role that reads as a step down, not out of vanity but because of how peers will see it. A "Head of Marketing" reporting to a country manager can translate into Japanese organisational terms as a demotion, and the candidate will decline without telling you why.
Sources
- Companies Act (directors, representative directors, statutory auditors and statutory executive officers); all other titles are company practice.