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The Transnational Frontiers Of Japanese Education: Multiculturalism, Cosmopolitanism, And Global Isomorphism, Hiro Saito Jul 2020

The Transnational Frontiers Of Japanese Education: Multiculturalism, Cosmopolitanism, And Global Isomorphism, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Japanese education system today faces three transnationally created challenges. The first is multiculturalism. Given an increasing number of students whose parents are either migrants or naturalized citizens, the government needs to rethink the nature of public schools, which have traditionally catered to ethnic majority students, and explore how to make them culturally more inclusive. The second is cosmopolitanism. Although cosmopolitanism is regarded as a desirable disposition and competency in a globalizing world, the government has difficulty incorporating it into the education system that continues to function as a central vehicle of nation-building. The third is global isomorphism. While world …


Covid-19 And Japanese Shareholder Activism: Brief Respite For Japan's Self-Healing Concrete, Toru Yoshikawa, Gavin Chua May 2020

Covid-19 And Japanese Shareholder Activism: Brief Respite For Japan's Self-Healing Concrete, Toru Yoshikawa, Gavin Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Extrapolating from modern international understanding of corporate Japan’s distinct form of managerial capitalism, we elaborate on the growing momentum of shareholder activism in Japan leading up to the COVID-19 health crisis, so as to inform the subsequent discussion on the relevant primary considerations that belie the future direction of shareholder activism in Japan post-COVID-19. On an initial logical extrapolation, it appears probable that COVID-19 could mark the peak of Japanese activism. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the success of Japan’s managerial capitalism have also declined, which poses a question on to which direction Japanese corporate governance may be …


Hostile Takeover Regimes In Asia: A Comparative Approach, Umakanth Varottil, Wai Yee Wan Jan 2019

Hostile Takeover Regimes In Asia: A Comparative Approach, Umakanth Varottil, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The market for corporate control is animportant corporate governance mechanism for the discipline of corporatemanagers. However, the process and substance of the regulation of hostiletakeovers differs remarkably among various jurisdictions. Existing andinfluential scholarship has focused on the differences in regulation between UnitedStates (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), with the explanations being founded ininterest group politics. Influential as it is, the question is whether thetheory can be extended outside of the US and the UK, particularly to theirlegal transplants in Asia? In the last few decades, many of the Asianjurisdictions have drawn heavily from the US and the UK when …


Designing Small Successes, Edwin Low Jun 2018

Designing Small Successes, Edwin Low

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence

Edwin Low of Supermama talks about how he’s built his team and the differences between Singaporean and Japanese customers


Whose Blue Heaven? Musicality In The Early Japanese Talkies, Richard M Davis Mar 2018

Whose Blue Heaven? Musicality In The Early Japanese Talkies, Richard M Davis

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article focuses on the advent of synchronized sound production in Japan in 1931 – three years later than the United States – and the generative ambiguities of how sound and music’s relationship to film was figured in that year’s anxious discourse. I argue that this ‘belatedness’ is echoed in relationships of on-screen image and offscreen sound, noise, and music in two important early sound films, The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine (Gosho 1931) and A Tipsy Life (Kimura 1933).


The Evolution Of Ownership Structure In Japanese Firms (1962-2012), Jungwook Shim, Toru Yoshikawa Jan 2017

The Evolution Of Ownership Structure In Japanese Firms (1962-2012), Jungwook Shim, Toru Yoshikawa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this chapter, we investigate the evolution of ownership structure and corporate governance in Japanese firms based on the entire population of listed firms from 1962 to 2012.


The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito Dec 2016

The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In recent decades, research on ‘political apology’, wherein the state apologizes to victims of its past wrongs, has multiplied, as redress movements based on human rights have proliferated around the world. Since most of this research has been conducted by political philosophers, however, analyses of political apologies tend to adopt formal and normative perspectives. To propose an alternative, empirically-grounded approach, in this paper, I develop the ‘cultural pragmatics’ of political apology. To this end, I first conceptualize political apology as a social performance aimed to ‘re-fuse’ an impaired relationship between the perpetrator state and the victim individual. This conceptual move …


The Fundamental Law Of Highway Congestion Revisited: Evidence From National Expressways In Japan, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hongliang Zhang May 2014

The Fundamental Law Of Highway Congestion Revisited: Evidence From National Expressways In Japan, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hongliang Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The fundamental law of highway congestion states that when congested, the travel speed on an expanded expressway reverts to its previous level before the capacity expansion. In this paper, we propose a theory that generalizes this statement and finds that if there exists a coverage effect, that is, the effect of longer road length on traffic conditional on capacity, then the new equilibrium travel speed could be lower than its previous level. Given the fundamental law, the theory predicts that the elasticity of traffic to road capacity is at least 1. We estimate this elasticity for national expressways in Japan …


How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation?: Evidence From Japan, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa Jun 2013

How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation?: Evidence From Japan, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

Exploiting unique panel data that include direct measurements of resource allocation within households, we investigated the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. Based on a collective model of the household, we developed reduced-form and structural-form estimation equations that allow us to focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. We found one additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share by at least two percentage points. This may be because she substitutes more say in decisions on the children for her own private expenditure share.


Performance Sensitivity Of Executive Pay: The Role Of Foreign Investors And Affiliated Directors In Japan, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa Nov 2012

Performance Sensitivity Of Executive Pay: The Role Of Foreign Investors And Affiliated Directors In Japan, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study investigates the effects of corporate governance factors on the firm performance and executive compensation linkage. Specifically, we examine how domestic corporate-appointed directors, bank-appointed directors and foreign ownership moderate the relationship between firm profitability, sales growth, and executive bonus pay in Japanese firms. Using a sample of the largest Japanese manufacturing companies from 1997 to 2007, we find that corporate-appointed directors positively moderate the relationship between firm growth and bonus pay, while foreign shareholders exhibit a positive moderating effect on the relationship between firm profitability and bonus pay. Bank-appointed directors are straddled between their profitability orientation and relational role: …


Global Health Governance: Analyzing China, India, And Japan As Global Health Aid Donors, Ann Florini, Karthik Nachiappan, Tikki Pang, Christine Pilcavage Sep 2012

Global Health Governance: Analyzing China, India, And Japan As Global Health Aid Donors, Ann Florini, Karthik Nachiappan, Tikki Pang, Christine Pilcavage

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Development assistance is a significant mechanism by which major countries exercise influence in the global health arena. Of the major Asian powers, Japan has long provided significant funding, while China and India have primarily been recipients but are beginning to increase their funding roles. This article examines the amounts, channels, modes, disease allocations and the geographic focuses of their foreign health aid, and delineates the institutional structures that govern the formulation and implementation of foreign health aid policy in each of these countries, to explore what influence China, India, and Japan have and may develop in the global health arena. …


The Fukushima Disaster And Japan’S Occupy Movement, Hiro Saito Feb 2012

The Fukushima Disaster And Japan’S Occupy Movement, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

On October 15, 2011, OccupyTokyo protests took place in three different districts: Hibiya,Shinjuku, and Roppongi. Before the rallies began, protesters gathered in parkswhere organizers and participants gave speeches. They expressed solidarity withthe worldwide Occupy movement, criticized a widening economic gap in Japan, anddemanded a more just world. Protesters then took to the streets with theirplacards, drums, and megaphones to shout slogans to reclaim society for “the99%.”


The Derivative Action In Asia: A Complex Reality, Dan W. Puchniak Jan 2012

The Derivative Action In Asia: A Complex Reality, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This Article uses the derivative action in Asia as a lens for re-evaluating the foundational theories of Asian and comparative corporate law. It begins by demonstrating that the cultural theory of “Asian non-litigiousness” provides scant explanatory or predictive value for either the evolution or function of the derivative action in Asia’s leading economies. As such, this Article suggests that the theory of Asian non-litigiousness should be relegated to the dustbin of academic history. Without the black box of Asian culture to erroneously explain away potential differences between “Asian” and “Western” derivative actions, the reality of the derivative action in Asia’s …


An Analysis Of Japanese Earnings Forecast Revisions With Application To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Gary L. Caton, Justin S. P. Chan, Jeremy C. Goh, Sheng Yung Yang Jun 2011

An Analysis Of Japanese Earnings Forecast Revisions With Application To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Gary L. Caton, Justin S. P. Chan, Jeremy C. Goh, Sheng Yung Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using the bootstrap method, we explore the characteristics of revisions in Japanese earnings forecast data. We find that forecast revisions exhibit a downward trend over time as the actual earnings announcement date approaches, and are serially correlated with three significant lags. Using these characteristics we develop a model to estimate abnormal forecast revisions, and illustrate the model's use with a sample of Japanese companies announcing seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). In contrast to results obtained by studies using American data, our findings indicate significant positive upward revisions when Japanese firms announce an SEO.


Making And Unmaking Of Transnational Environmental Cooperation, Yooil Bae, Dong-Ae Shin, Yong-Wook Lee Jan 2011

Making And Unmaking Of Transnational Environmental Cooperation, Yooil Bae, Dong-Ae Shin, Yong-Wook Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There has been an ongoing debate about how (or through what mechanisms) global environmental norms have influenced domestic political debates that give rise to green policy choices. In particular, effective international environmental cooperation between transnational and domestic NGOs has been recognized as a key to successful environmental movements. In this regard, the central question guiding research on the politics of environmental norms is, under what condition(s) transnational cooperation among NGOs would be more likely to be sustained so as to achieve its goals. This article proposes that one of the mechanisms missing from the debate is a bottom-up approach through …


The Impact Of Firm Strategy And Foreign Ownership On Executive Bonus Compensation In Japanese Firms, Toru Yoshikawa, Abdul A. Rasheed, Esther B. Del Brio Nov 2010

The Impact Of Firm Strategy And Foreign Ownership On Executive Bonus Compensation In Japanese Firms, Toru Yoshikawa, Abdul A. Rasheed, Esther B. Del Brio

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Building on information-processing perspectives and the Japanese contextual factors, this study investigates the relationships between firm strategy and executive bonus pay as well as the moderating role of foreign ownership on the strategy–compensation relationship in Japanese firms. We focus on R&D investment and product diversification as strategy variables and investigate their direct effects on executive bonus pay. Further, we examine the moderating effects of foreign ownership on the strategy–pay sensitivity. The results, based on a sample of the 148 largest industrial firms in Japan for the 1990–1997 period, show that both R&D investment and product diversification are positively related to …


The More Kids, The Less Mom's Divvy: Impact Of Childbirth On Intrahousehold Resource Allocation, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa Oct 2008

The More Kids, The Less Mom's Divvy: Impact Of Childbirth On Intrahousehold Resource Allocation, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate how the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. We developed reduced‐form and structural‐form specifications from a unified theoretical framework. Under a weak set of assumptions, we can focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. Our estimation results show that that allocation of resources within household tend to move to the disadvantage of women after a childbirth. One additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share. Our estimation results reject the income-pooling hypothesis, and show that women are more risk averse than men.


Change And Continuity In Japanese Corporate Governance, Toru Yoshikawa, Jean Mcguire Mar 2008

Change And Continuity In Japanese Corporate Governance, Toru Yoshikawa, Jean Mcguire

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Previous studies on Japanese corporate governance were largely based on the agency theory framework, and can be seen as attempts to understand the unique monitoring mechanisms in the Japanese context. This paper briefly reviews prior research and then discusses the recent changes in the environment that have been affecting Japanese corporate governance. Our central argument is that there is both change and continuity in Japanese Corporate Governance. We also present emerging research from an institutional theory perspective. In this line of research, corporate governance is treated as part of a nation’s institutional framework and hence, researchers need to understand unique …


Technological Knowledge, Product Relatedness, And Parent Control: The Effect On Ijv Survival, Dean Xu, Jane W. Lu Nov 2007

Technological Knowledge, Product Relatedness, And Parent Control: The Effect On Ijv Survival, Dean Xu, Jane W. Lu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article examines the relationships among parent firm technological knowledge, parent-IJV product relatedness, parent control over the IJV, and IJV survival. Combining the knowledge-based perspective and institutional theory, we argue that parent control itself does not necessarily lead to higher IN survival; it contributes to IN survival when the parent firm has a high level of technological knowledge, and when the IJV is product-related to this parent. Results obtained from 1038 Japanese IJVs based in China indicate that both equity control and managerial control of a Japanese parent had a positive interaction effect, with the parent's technological knowledge, on IN …


Reiterated Commemoration: Hiroshima As National Trauma, Hiro Saito Dec 2006

Reiterated Commemoration: Hiroshima As National Trauma, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines historical transformations of Japanese collective memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by utilizing a theoretical framework that combines a model of reiterated problem solving and a theory of cultural trauma. I illustrate how the event of the nuclear fallout in March 1954 allowed actors to consolidate previously fragmented commemorative practices into a master frame to define the postwar Japanese identity in terms of transnational commemoration of "Hiroshima." I also show that nationalization of trauma of "Hiroshima" involved a shift from pity to sympathy in structures of feeling about the event. This historical study suggests that a …


Strategic Investments In Japanese Corporations: Do Foreign Portfolio Owners Foster Underinvestment Or Appropriate Investment?, Parthiban David, Toru Yoshikawa, Murali D. R. Chari, Abdul A. Rasheed Jun 2006

Strategic Investments In Japanese Corporations: Do Foreign Portfolio Owners Foster Underinvestment Or Appropriate Investment?, Parthiban David, Toru Yoshikawa, Murali D. R. Chari, Abdul A. Rasheed

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates the effect of foreign ownership on strategic investments in Japanese corporations. Foreign owners are typically portfolio investors who frequently buy and sell shares and hold diversified portfolios of small stakes in many firms. Prior research has presented two conflicting perspectives on the role of such investors: (a) their frequent trading leads to pressure for short-term returns that fosters underinvestment; (b) their active trading fosters appropriate investments. We investigated the relationship between foreign ownership and strategic investments using dynamic panel data analysis of a sample of 146 Japanese manufacturing firms from 1991 to 1997. We found that foreign …


Westernization Of Business Organizations In Japan And China. Continuity And Change, Wai Keung Chung Jan 2006

Westernization Of Business Organizations In Japan And China. Continuity And Change, Wai Keung Chung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


The Impact Of Ownership Structure On Wage Intensity In Japanese Corporations, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan, Parthiban David Apr 2005

The Impact Of Ownership Structure On Wage Intensity In Japanese Corporations, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan, Parthiban David

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors studied the effect of ownership structure on human capital investments as indicated by wage intensity, defined as the ratio of expenditure on employee wages to sales, in a sample of 996 Japanese manufacturing firms during their economic recession of 1998-2002. They found that domestic shareholders, with interests beyond financial considerations, enhance wage intensity, especially when performance is low, and thereby safeguard human capital investments. Foreign shareholders with sole interest in financial returns have an opposite effect; they reduce wage intensity when firm performance is low.


Ownership Structure, Investment Behaviour And Firm Performance In Japanese Manufacturing Industries, Eric Gedajlovic, Toru Yoshikawa, Motomi Hashimoto Jan 2005

Ownership Structure, Investment Behaviour And Firm Performance In Japanese Manufacturing Industries, Eric Gedajlovic, Toru Yoshikawa, Motomi Hashimoto

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using data spanning the 1996-98 fiscal years of 247 of Japan's largest manufacturers, we empirically evaluate the extent to which a firm's investment behaviour and financial performance are influenced by its ownership structure. To do so, we examine six distinct categories of Japanese shareholders: foreign investors, investment funds, pension funds, banks and insurance companies, affiliated companies and insiders. Our findings strongly indicate that the relationship between the equity stakes of a particular category of investor and a firm' s financial performance and investment behaviour is considerably more complex than is depicted in simple principal-agent representations. Such a result emphasizes the …


Effects Of Board Structure On Firm Performance: A Comparison Of Japan And Australia, Ingrid Bonn, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan Mar 2004

Effects Of Board Structure On Firm Performance: A Comparison Of Japan And Australia, Ingrid Bonn, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article compares the effects of board size, proportion of female directors, proportion of outside directors and average age of directors on firm performance in Japanese and Australian firms. We found that board size and age of directors were negatively associated with the performance of Japanese firms. For Australian firms, outsider ratio and female director ratio were positively associated with performance.


Potential For Floating Offshore Wind Energy In Japanese Waters, A. R. Henderson, R. Leutz, Tomoki Fujii May 2002

Potential For Floating Offshore Wind Energy In Japanese Waters, A. R. Henderson, R. Leutz, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

The prospects for large scale commercialisation of sea-bed-mounted offshore windfarms are currently excellent, with the existing small-scale prototype windfarms currently being joined by the first large-scale parks in the shallow seas off the Danish, German, Swedish, Dutch, Belgian, British and Irish coasts. However other countries, including Japan, have much more limited regions of the shallow waters suitable for such developments and hence other concepts will also need to be utilised if offshore wind energy is also to become a major source of energy there.


Asian Expatriate Development: A Comparative Study Of Japanese, Korean And Singaporean Expatriates, A. Ahad M. Osman-Gani, Wee Liang Tan Oct 1998

Asian Expatriate Development: A Comparative Study Of Japanese, Korean And Singaporean Expatriates, A. Ahad M. Osman-Gani, Wee Liang Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Owing to rapid internationalization of business activity, human resource development (HRD) has become increasingly important in recent years. This is especially true when domestic human resource management takes on international dimensions as it deals more with multicultural workforce. International HRD, much of it embodied in cross-cultural training, has been proposed by many scholars as a means of facilitating more effective interaction among managers, employees and customers from different national-cultural backgrounds. Despite the need for cross-cultural skills and the shortage of managers who possess these skills, most human resource decision-makers do nothing in terms of cross-cultural training for their employees. Studies …


An Economic Analysis Of Fertility, Market Participation And Marriage Behaviour In Recent Japan, David K. C. Lee, Chin Lee Gan Jan 1989

An Economic Analysis Of Fertility, Market Participation And Marriage Behaviour In Recent Japan, David K. C. Lee, Chin Lee Gan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This is the 1st attempt in modelling fertility, labor force participation and marriage rate using Japanese data. The authors use Butz and Ward's model and extend it to a simultaneous equation system as in the case of Winegarden. Although the estimates obtained by Full Information Maximum Likelihood and Three Stage Least Squares of the model are statistically significant, some of the signs of the estimates are not consistent to a priori predictions. The crux of the model is that an increase in the wages of men has an unambiguous positive effect on fertility, whereas an increase in wages of women …