Interview with Charles Tackney
Charles Tackney is professor of Industrial Relations and affiliated with the Centre for Business and Development Studies in CBS. On Thurday 23rd of April I got to sit down with yet another asian scholar for a talk about lifetime employment, the students at ASp and how a former jesuit ends up teaching at CBS.
I was on my way to interview professor of Industrial Relations Charles Tackney, or Charlie as he prefers to be called. Like all the other professors I have interviewed Charlie is located somewhere in the mazelike compound of Porcelænshaven. When I asked where I could find him I received a somewhat intricate email reply:
“i am at 18A ph, second floor, near kitchen. find bunny dharma, greet bunny dharma. that is my office”
I manage to navigate the crocked corridors and stairways until I find the second floor of building 18A. Although Charlie gave me a clue, the bunny dharma, I see no such thing. Instead I’m left to read the neat little signs on the doors of the different offices. Finally I see a small sign with the name Charles Tackney. I still see no bunny but the door is ajar and I peep in. It seems I have located my mark. I enter eagerly to greet the professor but I am interrupted before I can enter.
“Please greet bunny dharma”. I look around perplexed and to my left, pasted on the door, I see a picture of a small stuffed bunny, taken with a digital camera and obviously printed on a home printer. I am quite surprised and admit to Charlie that I had expected a Tibetan-style figurine.
“People have so different expectation to what the bunny dharma is, that’s why I do it”.
I look around the room. The professor’s office is rectangular, not very big and filled with papers and books. The papers and bookshelves leave only a small corridor from the door to Charlie’s work desk.
I start the interview with my usual question: “What is your background and what do you do at CBS?”
Surprisingly, Charlie was originally a psychology undergraduate and then decided to join the Jesuits. “It seemed like the right thing to do at that time” he explains. While in the order he took a masters degree in Philosophy and was sent to Japan. In Japan he learnt Japanese, lived in dorm and taught in a Japanese high school. Later he studied theology and psychology at Sophia University, the Jesuit University in Japan. After 7 years he decided to leave the order but stayed in Japan to study Zen Buddhism. At that time he worked as translator and technical editor “and made a lot of money” he says with emphasis. Then he married and went, with his wife, to Wisconsin university where he took yet another Masters degree and a PHD, both in Industrial Relations. As part of his PHD in Industrial Relations he worked for one year in a machine tools factory in Nagoya as a new employee. After defending his PHD he went on to teach in Bunkyo University. One day he saw a job posting for a job at CBS, he applied and was hired. That was in 1999.
I am only just coming to grips with all the things he already did before coming to CBS before he continues to tell about his post-1999 endeavours.
From 2000-2006 he was the programme director of the JAPØK (the precursor to the Asian Studies Programme). Right now he is an associate professor who teaches very ASP courses. “The Japan stuff” as he neatly sums it up. He is also the course coordinator for Year 2+3 research methods.
Besides his teaching a professor does what a professor does best: Research. Charlie informs me that he has been doing research on “Comparative employment ecology models” since 1995. Charlie goes on to explain it has to do with how much power and information befalls the employees in companies of different national origin.
Finally he also does research on education theory.
The talk of education research leads us to education at CBS. “The CBS undergraduate education is unique” Charlie confidently states.
“In the US there tons of classes, true/false question and multiple-choice quizzes. But at what point do you get to sit down the professor and talk about what that course really means to you?” When the student and teacher sits down one on one to discuss the course or research project, a unique exchange of knowledge takes place Charlie explains further.
I think of how things are done in ASP. We are given some classes in research methods, an advisor and group and are then expect to do a research project.
“ In an examination situation it can happen that a student finds some entirely new angle on a topic. When this happens the even the teacher might feel like he has learned something. “
“Is that then a 12?” he asks rhetorically.
“It used to be a 13” I reply.
The 13-scale was abolished to conform to international standards. This illustrates how Denmark is at a crossroads, experiencing pressure from globalisation to standardize the education system. At the same time we are trying to figure out what works and what does not work in our education system Charlie contemplates.
What is your impression of the students at ASP?
He asks me whether I mean all ASP students or just the ones he meets. What he refers to is that only around one third of students make it to the higher years.
“They are people who have a clear notion of why they are doing this. They are particularly called or motivated, or just…. Crazy. “
He later asks if he can revise the crazy to “exceptional”.
“They are a special crowd. These students are determined to master something which is very hard to acquire. Asian languages take 6-10 years to master properly. “
I point out that there are also less determined people. People who want to study ASP just be able to read manga or apply by chance, and yet make it past the year zero and become quite good.
“This was the closest thing to Chinese so that’s why I study JAPØK” Charlie supplements by quoting one of his former students.
I decide to ask Charlie his last question in his field of expertise, Industrial Relations.
“Are there people who are lifetime employed in Japan today?”
“YES – Economics who claim that it does not exist or that it is going away are WRONG”
He continues to explain that lifetime employment is an institutional practice; it’s a legal thing. Lifetime employment exists primarily in case law, that is previous rulings in legal twist that have created precedence. He takes a thick folder from his bookshelf.
“These are all the cases in which the Japanese Supreme Court quoted lifetime employment.”
The last time the Supreme Court quoted lifetime employment was in 1997.
Charie explains how it is very hard to fire someone who is lifetime employed, even in cases of negligence and drunkenness. “Isn’t that horribly inefficient?” I exclaim, thinking of communism.
“Not at all, Japan is the second most efficient economy in the world” Charlie confidently refutes me.
I ask if lifetime employment isn’t disappearing due to the economic conditions. Charlie explains how lifetime employment will continue exist since all lifetime employees are “insulated” by temporary works who can be hired and fired easily.
Needless to say, Japanese companies are very careful about hiring people.
Suddenly our time is up and Charlie is called away on an errant. I Pass bunny Dharma once again and leaves his office.
Much of Charley’s research conducted at CBS is publicly available through OpenArchive@CBS
