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By Bloomberg

Kazuo Hirai is being criticized by a former Sony Corp. director who says the company’s chief executive officer is abandoning its traditional engineering focus.

Sony’s electronics business is central to its long-term success, Tamotsu Iba, 79, a former chief financial officer and vice chairman, wrote in a letter sent to management on Monday. Iba, who sent two other missives earlier this year, wants Sony executives to address his questions about executive compensation and Hirai’s leadership during a June 23 shareholder meeting.

Iba says Hirai’s strategy runs counter to Sony’s “Founding Prospectus,” handwritten by co-founder Masaru Ibuka in 1946. The document describes “a stable workplace where engineers could work to their hearts’ content in full consciousness of their joy in technology.”

Iba met with Hirai and other Sony executives in April without getting answers to all his questions, he said.

“Sony used to be a unique and extraordinary company,” Iba wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to Bloomberg News. “During the past 10 to 20 years, Sony spirit for innovation has been diluted, and as a symbol, the Sony brand has become weak.”

George Boyd, a spokesmen for Sony in Tokyo, declined to comment in an e-mail. Shares have risen 53 percent this year, compared with a 19 percent increase for the benchmark Topix index.