Strategic Management from an Islamic Perspective: Text and Cases

Chapter 16

Case 7: Fuji Xeroxa

The Phone Call

Dr. Ahmad Gafor had just received a phone call from his contact at Fuji Xerox. They had a polite conversation, but he knew that his friends at Fuji Xerox were getting impatient. It had all started with a paper he presented on strategic management from an Islamic perspective at an international conference. The paper asserted that there was enough commonality between Islamic values and universal values to make the claim that non-Muslim managers can embrace Islamic principles of management without embracing Islam. At the end of the presentation, a Japanese man approached him. He introduced himself as a manager from Fuji Xerox in charge of corporate social responsibility (CSR). He explained that Fuji realized that over the next 20 years, Islamic management would probably become popular in the way Islamic banking and finance had become popular. As part of their CSR initiative, Fuji wanted to hire a senior Muslim academic to help the senior management understand the long-term implications of Islamic management. In particular, they were concerned whether an “Islamic management” certification system would appear in the future in the way that halaal logos are now the norm in most Muslim countries.

Dr. Gafor was interested in the whole project. It would be a groundbreaking initiative, although he would have to move to Japan. He was also worried. Could non-Muslims ever understand Islamic management? Wasn’t Islamic management something that only ...