Corporate Governance and Managerial Reform in Japan

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-956363-0
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 640 g

Japanese corporate governance and managerial practice is at a critical juncture. At the start of the decade pressures mounted for Japan to move to a shareholder-value driven, 'Anglo-American' system of corporate governance. Subsequent changes, however, may be seen as an adjustment and renewal of the post-war model of the Japanese firm. In adapting to global corporate governance standards, Japanese managers have also been reshaping them according to their own agenda of reform and restructuring of decision-making processes.

The board's role is seen in terms of strategic planning rather than monitoring, and external directors are viewed as advisers, not as representatives of the shareholders. Managers have adopted a variety of defences against hostile takeovers, including poison pills in some cases. Although shareholder influence is more extensive than it was, central aspects of the Japanese 'community firm' remain in place. The commitment to stable or 'lifetime' employment for a core of employees, although coming under severe pressure, is still an important point of reference for Japanese management.

Corporate Governance and Managerial Reform in Japan is based on detailed and intensive field work in large Japanese companies and interviews with investors, civil servants, and policy makers in the period following the adoption of significant corporate law reforms in the early 2000s up to the months just before the global financial crisis of 2008. The Japanese experience suggests that there are limits to the global convergence of company law systems, and that the widespread association of Anglo-American practices with the 'modernization' of corporate governance has been misplaced. This conclusion is unlikely to be altered - it may be reinforced - by reactions to the financial crisis.

Zielgruppe

Academics and researchers in Corporate Governance, Industrial Relations, and Comparative Law, interested in developments in Japan

Autoren/Hrsg.

Whittaker, D. Hugh

Deakin, Simon

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Volkswirtschaften einzelner Länder und Regionen
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Literatur für Manager
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Unternehmensorganisation, Corporate Responsibility Unternehmenskultur, Corporate Governance
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- 1: Simon Deakin and D. Hugh Whittaker: On a Different Path? The Managerial Reshaping of Japanese Corporate Governance

- 2: John Buchanan and Simon Deakin: In the Shadow of Corporate Governance Reform: Change and Continuity in Managerial Practice at Listed Companies in Japan

- 3: Masaru Hayakawa and D. Hugh Whittaker: Takeovers and Corporate Governance: Three Years of Tensions

- 4: Sanford M. Jacoby: Foreign Investors and Corporate Governance in Japan: The Case of CalPERS

- 5: Ronald Dore: Japan's Conversion to Investor Capitalism

- 6: Takeshi Inagami: Managers and Corporate Governance Reform in Japan: Restoring Self-Confidence or Shareholder Revolution?

- 7: George Olcott: Whose Company Is It? Changing CEO Ideology in Japan

- 8: Takashi Araki: Changes in Japan's Practice-Dependent Stakeholder Model and Employee-Centred Corporate Governance

- 9: Hisayoshi Fuwa: Management Innovation at Toshiba: The Introduction of the Company With Committees System

- 10: D. Hugh Whittaker and Simon Deakin: Corporate Governance, Institutions, and the Spirits of Capitalism

Über Autor(innen)

D. Hugh Whittaker is a Professor at the University of Auckland Business School. He has written extensively on Japanese and comparative management, entrepreneurship and innovation, most recently Comparative Entrepreneurship: The UK, Japan, and the Shadow of Silicon Valley (with P. Byosiere, S. Momose, T. Morishita, T. Quince and J. Higuchi) and Recovering From Success: Innovation and Technology Management in Japan (co-edited with R. E. Cole), both from Oxford University Press.

Simon Deakin is a Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge and director of the corporate governance research programme of the Centre for Business Research, also at Cambridge. He has recently been a visiting professor at Columbia University and at Doshisha University, Kyoto. He published extensively in the fields of corporate governance, labour law and tort law. He was elected to a Fellowship of the British Academy in 2005.