CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN JAPAN: CURRENT ISSUES

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Abstract

Facing the prolonged recession since the burst of a financial bubble in 1990 Japan has been experimenting with various new policy initiatives both in the public and private sectors, corporate governance reform being one of such policy initiatives. Japanese corporate governance practices in particular have been severely blamed as one of the primary reasons for Japan’s poor economic performance in the last decade. In this paper we discuss the relationship between corporate governance and various aspects of management practices in Japan. (Corporate governance in Japan emphasizes not only the shareholders and managers, as in the West, but also the workers as important corporate stakeholders.) We point out also that Japan’s relatively loosely practiced anti-monopoly (anti-trust) laws continue shaping Japanese corporate governance behavior. We then evaluate Japan’s corporate governance reform movement which emphasizes the transformation of the current corporate governance system, which pays little attention to individual shareholders, into one similar to the Anglo-American system which focuses more on shareholders’ value. We tentatively conclude that Japan has not yet found a new corporate governance system that can serve as an equilibrium business system in that it is compatible with Japan’s management, legal and other practices and the incentives of the constituents of Japanese firms. This paper also presents various incentive and institutional issues which would have to be considered by those who consider potential applicability of the Japanese-like corporate governance practices to transitional economies.

Keywords: Japanese Corporate Governance Practice, Transitional Economies

How to cite this paper: Nakamura, M. (2003). Corporate governance and management practices in Japan: Current issues. Corporate Ownership & Control, 1(2), 38-52. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv1i2p3