Japan is a rather small country with an efficient public transport service, so moving across half the country, and then back, in a few hours within the same day is quite doable. And the author did exactly that today on a trip to Kyoto for an essay contest presentation. However, just because it is fast and easy does not mean such a trip is cheap. The four-hour round trip between Tokyo and Kyoto easily cost up to 200 USD without seat reservation, which is equivalent to more than 10% of what a corporate newbie earns in a fairly decent company here in Japan.
Yet, the essay contest committee handed over that much money, and more, as transport stipend for the author to show up to Kyoto to give a 15-minute presentation, without so much a check on the receipts to make sure the figures are correct. Heck, as far as the author's experience with essay contests are concerned, today was still cheap. Back in January, he was paid more than 1000 USD to fly from Tanzania to Tokyo, just to attend the reception of an essay contest, without even making any presentations. And of course, the money here is just the transport fee, not even including the bigger sums of actual prize money.
The fact that Japanese essay contest organizers are so "frivolous" with their money makes one wonder exactly how and why they dispense so much cash just to get a few papers, while definitely interesting in content, are still not professional enough to be published anywhere other the newsletters and websites of the organizations running the essay contests. For the amount paid out to the winning contestants, the organizations, and the donors behind the prize money, get so little in return that is simply difficult to understand exactly what is the logic behind organizing such contests in the first place.
Come to think of it, donating money to essay contests as prize money cannot even really be categorized as "corporate social responsibility" in the same way as donating money for scholarships. At least for scholarships, the company can unequivocally put down the name of the company as the sponsor of the scholarship, and argue that they are doing their part to help underprivileged students to achieve their hopes and dreams through schooling. They can even recruit the students they sponsored into their companies based on the understanding and rapport developed in the funding process.
The same process do not exist with essay contests. Any talks about essay contests tend not to evolve around the companies that sponsor them, but the theme of the contests themselves and the excellent entries that the contests managed to get. The company can barely get the name out as bylines of any posters about the contest, much less name the contest after itself. The government organizations and NGOs that organize the contests get all the credit and spotlight, and push aside commercial firms who provide the money in terms of publicity, for fear of overly damaging the supposed academic nature of the contests themselves.
It is hard to ask for an answer on a question like this. If the question is posed to a corporate donor, the answer is inevitably something related to the theme of the contest, whether it be to promote international exchange or transmission of ideas, incentivize creative thinking or academic writing, or create platforms for people to express themselves in ways not usually available. They are all great answers, especially for the contestants who no doubt genuinely appreciate the opportunities and prize money on offer, but it is still hard to link such answers to actual corporate goals.
If the author had to speculate, he has to say that the essay contests may provide an alternative way for business to pressure governments and society at at large to behave in a certain way that is often unacceptable for the companies themselves to suggest directly. Such underlying motivation may be especially salient for contests involving foreigners, who are perceived to have a third-party, and thus rather objective, understanding of certain issues in Japan. In the name of "making lives for foreigners easier than Japan," contest sponsors can promote any points that the foreigners raise with which they agree.
The result of such subliminal signals, over time, could be gradual changes in government policies in directions that companies prefer. Companies, by sponsoring essay contests for youths, foreigners, and even the general public, gain moral authority of having better understanding how the general populace think about various issues that the companies care about. By selecting certain entries with contests that they support, contest sponsors implicitly push the government to behave according to those winning ideas, propagated by media outlets present during presentations.
Yet, the essay contest committee handed over that much money, and more, as transport stipend for the author to show up to Kyoto to give a 15-minute presentation, without so much a check on the receipts to make sure the figures are correct. Heck, as far as the author's experience with essay contests are concerned, today was still cheap. Back in January, he was paid more than 1000 USD to fly from Tanzania to Tokyo, just to attend the reception of an essay contest, without even making any presentations. And of course, the money here is just the transport fee, not even including the bigger sums of actual prize money.
The fact that Japanese essay contest organizers are so "frivolous" with their money makes one wonder exactly how and why they dispense so much cash just to get a few papers, while definitely interesting in content, are still not professional enough to be published anywhere other the newsletters and websites of the organizations running the essay contests. For the amount paid out to the winning contestants, the organizations, and the donors behind the prize money, get so little in return that is simply difficult to understand exactly what is the logic behind organizing such contests in the first place.
Come to think of it, donating money to essay contests as prize money cannot even really be categorized as "corporate social responsibility" in the same way as donating money for scholarships. At least for scholarships, the company can unequivocally put down the name of the company as the sponsor of the scholarship, and argue that they are doing their part to help underprivileged students to achieve their hopes and dreams through schooling. They can even recruit the students they sponsored into their companies based on the understanding and rapport developed in the funding process.
The same process do not exist with essay contests. Any talks about essay contests tend not to evolve around the companies that sponsor them, but the theme of the contests themselves and the excellent entries that the contests managed to get. The company can barely get the name out as bylines of any posters about the contest, much less name the contest after itself. The government organizations and NGOs that organize the contests get all the credit and spotlight, and push aside commercial firms who provide the money in terms of publicity, for fear of overly damaging the supposed academic nature of the contests themselves.
It is hard to ask for an answer on a question like this. If the question is posed to a corporate donor, the answer is inevitably something related to the theme of the contest, whether it be to promote international exchange or transmission of ideas, incentivize creative thinking or academic writing, or create platforms for people to express themselves in ways not usually available. They are all great answers, especially for the contestants who no doubt genuinely appreciate the opportunities and prize money on offer, but it is still hard to link such answers to actual corporate goals.
If the author had to speculate, he has to say that the essay contests may provide an alternative way for business to pressure governments and society at at large to behave in a certain way that is often unacceptable for the companies themselves to suggest directly. Such underlying motivation may be especially salient for contests involving foreigners, who are perceived to have a third-party, and thus rather objective, understanding of certain issues in Japan. In the name of "making lives for foreigners easier than Japan," contest sponsors can promote any points that the foreigners raise with which they agree.
The result of such subliminal signals, over time, could be gradual changes in government policies in directions that companies prefer. Companies, by sponsoring essay contests for youths, foreigners, and even the general public, gain moral authority of having better understanding how the general populace think about various issues that the companies care about. By selecting certain entries with contests that they support, contest sponsors implicitly push the government to behave according to those winning ideas, propagated by media outlets present during presentations.
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