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Full-Text Articles in Business
Covid-19 And Japanese Shareholder Activism: Brief Respite For Japan's Self-Healing Concrete, Toru Yoshikawa, Gavin Chua
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 …
How Do Board Ties Affect The Adoption Of New Practices? The Effects Of Managerial Interest And Hierarchical Power, Toru Yoshikawa, Jung Wook Shim, Chang Hyun Kim, Anja Tuschke
How Do Board Ties Affect The Adoption Of New Practices? The Effects Of Managerial Interest And Hierarchical Power, Toru Yoshikawa, Jung Wook Shim, Chang Hyun Kim, Anja Tuschke
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
Research Question/Issues: Most extant literature implicitly equates obtaining information through board interlocks to acting on the information. We investigate triggers that help to translate the information into action. In addition to exposure to the information by board interlocks, we suggest that the self-interest of the individuals who create these ties and hierarchical power of interlinked firms determines the likelihood of taking actions of adopting new practices. Research Findings/Insights: Using the action of adopting two distinctive governance practices, stock option pays or board reform, we find that sent ties and received ties affect the adoption decisions differently. Whereas sent ties reflect …
Change And Continuity In Japanese Corporate Governance, Toru Yoshikawa, Jean Mcguire
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 …
Corporate Governance Reform As Institutional Innovation: The Case Of Japan, Toru Yoshikawa, Lai Si Tsui-Auch, Jean Mcguire
Corporate Governance Reform As Institutional Innovation: The Case Of Japan, Toru Yoshikawa, Lai Si Tsui-Auch, Jean Mcguire
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
To address the convergence-divergence debate in corporate governance, we conduct a multiple-case, multiple-level study to analyze the diffusion of governance innovation in Japan. We argue that Japanese systems of corporate governance neither fully converge to, nor completely diverge from, the Anglo-American model. Rather, Sony-the pioneer of corporate governance reforms-and its followers selectively adopted features from this model, decoupled them from the original context, and tailored them to fit to their own situations to generate governance innovation. However, we find that the spread of innovation across firms and institutional levels is far from linear and straightforward, and that other well-regarded firms …
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
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 …
The Impact Of Ownership Structure On Wage Intensity In Japanese Corporations, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan, Parthiban David
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
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 …