Observations of Kongo Gumi's Corporate Creed : Research on the Corporate Creed Observed in the Living Company in Japan

Much attention has been paid to the management style of living companies in recent decades. The purpose of this paper is to report the corporate creed observed in a living company in Japan. The company under discussion is a going concern of very ancient origin and was owned and managed by the founding family. Many researchers and journalists think that this company is the oldest in the world. The corporate creed we are focusing on in this paper was written in old Japanese because the head of the family established the creed in the Edo period. This research reports the contents of the creed in modern Japanese, in order to a make contribution to the research on these enduring businesses.