Sase

Meet Mari Sako

Born in Japan and raised in Cairo, Beirut and London, Mari Sako describes herself as a business scholar trained in economics and sociology. Here, she tells us a bit about her background and mentors, and graciously responds to questions about her views on outsourcing and supply chains, and explains how she moved from research on the automobile industry to investigating the globalization of the legal sector.

Could you tell us a bit about your background? Where you were born and brought up?

I was born in Osaka, Japan, where my dad worked as a journalist.  He was transferred to Nagoya where I spent my kindergarten and some of my primary school years.  From there, my dad's foreign assignments took the family to Cairo in the late 1960s (I remember Nasser's state funeral), Beirut (peaceful 'Paris of the Middle East' during 1974-5), then to London. When my parents were due to go back to Japan, I was given a choice between staying in the UK or returning with them to Japan. I stayed, to go to Oxford.

What encounters – with places or people – have influenced you?

In my work, the most influential is the encounter with Ron Dore as a result of my responding to a newspaper job advert for research assistantship. As a young, naïve researcher disgruntled with theoretical economic modelling, he was instrumental in demonstrating the attractions of empirically grounded studies of a sociological nature.  On one occasion, he came to Kyoto to show me how to conduct interviews.  We looked at the telephone directory and rang up small business owners to make an appointment. We feigned ignorance whenever the respondent answered with a 'you know how things are in Japan' tone. We never left the interview site without asking for a tour of the factory. A real 'sitting by Nelly' experience.

How did your stint at MIT working on Toyota's manufacturing system, with its emphasis on just-in-time parts, (The Machine That Changed the World) affect you?

It was a nice way of getting even more grounded in empirically based theorizing, which the Sloan Foundation called 'Industry Studies.' The International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) at MIT was also a fantastic opportunity to be part of a genuinely international and multi-disciplinary research network.  I benefited greatly from colleagues who knew everything about cars, not just about just-in-time production and work organization, but also about engineering design for manufacturability and the material science behind new composites.  Apart from the fun of going around automobile plants together in the US, Japan, and Europe, I learnt two things about good research: first, a genuine commitment to undertake empirical studies by getting your hands dirty; and second, a constant engagement with the world of practice and public policy as a source for research ideas and for drawing implications from your research. I even subscribed to the Automotive News, not that I could ever aspire to be one of the 'car guys'.

How did you go from cars to lawyers?

A good question.  It may look unconnected, but there is a link. When I took up a fellowship for the UK Advanced Institute of Management (AIM), I chose to research about the differences between manufacturing and services.  As I dug deeper, treating the car industry as prototypical of manufacturing, I found that services – and business services in particular – were subject to similar forces of globalization and digitization, resulting in the phenomenon of outsourcing and offshoring. I chose legal services as an extreme case of business services, a sector tightly controlled by an old profession. I stopped subscribing to Automotive News and replaced it with Legal Week.

What do you see as the main thread of your research?

I study work and organization in a comparative perspective. Empirically, that focus has led me to study relational contracting in labour-management relations and supply relations in Japan and elsewhere. Theoretically, I wish to develop a deeper understanding of how incentives (a concern of economists) and norms (a concern of sociologists) interact to lead to decisions and actions.

Have you ever held a job outside academia?

No, an academic job is the only thing I have ever done, although there have been episodes of institution-building and management in my career.

Of the many courses you taught, which is your favorite?

It's always fun to be able to devise a new course from scratch. This year, I started a new Diploma in Global Business, focused on the political and non-market strategies of business, including government-company relations, at the global and national levels.

Depending on one's perspective, supply chains, outsourcing, and so on can be seen as enhancing productivity or as taking away jobs and contributing to massive domestic unemployment figures.  What is your view?

The international division of labour has intensified through global value chains, initially in manufacturing and now in services. One of today's most pressing policy issues is what national governments can do to deal with the distributional and educational implications of this aspect of globalization.  Distributionally, how can losers be compensated, and over what time frame?  Educationally, greater skills and higher education do not seem to protect jobs from being offshored to lower cost locations.

Do you read the blog Overlawyered?

No, but I do read others such as Legal Futures and Legal OnRamp.  Lawyers are overblogged and overblogging for sure. How do they find the time? This is an amazing phenomenon given that most lawyers work long hours to practice law.

You have written that outsourcing is consistent with a trend towards greater centralization.  Isn't this contradictory?

There is a theoretical thrust to associate outsourcing with smaller organizations, flatter hierarchies, networks, and decentralized decision-making.  However, just as the internet can be used for decentralized networks or for central monitoring, the decision to outsource components or services can be made at different levels of an organization.  I wrote with Sue Helper and Howard Gospel in two separate studies how the current phase of outsourcing, when it comes to large business services outsourcing deals, is associated with corporate restructuring, which comes with centralizing outsourcing decisions to CEO's office.

What is it about research that grabs you?

The opportunity to 'wallow in the data,' to get my hands dirty with the data so as to obtain a direct feel of the real world, but to emerge from it with the clear thinking that results from the process.

Looking towards our annual conference, should global shifts be welcomed or deplored?

Any shifts – i.e., redistribution of power and wealth – result in winners who welcome and losers who deplore such shifts. The question, therefore, is how to develop and maintain a global governance structure that enable such shifts without eruptions.

What's on tap for SASE at MIT in 2012?  Can you give us a preview?

Ricky Locke, the Programme Director, and I are putting together featured speakers and panels that reflect the conference theme of Global Shifts.  Hopefully, we won't disappoint. Watch this space.