Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Asian Studies Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Asian Studies

Yung Kee: A Roast Goose Chase, Singapore Management University Aug 2022

Yung Kee: A Roast Goose Chase, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

How a Hong Kong culinary landmark emerged stronger following a bitter family feud over succession disputes


Judicial Review Of Directors' Duty Of Care: A Comparison Between U.S. & China, Zhaoyi Li Jan 2022

Judicial Review Of Directors' Duty Of Care: A Comparison Between U.S. & China, Zhaoyi Li

Articles

Articles 147 and 148 of the Company Law of the People’s Republic of China (“Chinese Company Law”) establish that directors owe a duty of care to their companies. However, both of these provisions fail to explain the role of judicial review in enforcing directors’ duty of care. The duty of care is a well-trodden territory in the United States, where directors’ liability is predicated on specific standards. The current American standard, adopted by many states, requires directors to “discharge their duties with the care that a person in a like position would reasonably believe appropriate under similar circumstances.” However, both …


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 …


Corporate Governance: Avoid The Groupthink Pitfall, Themin Suwardy Mar 2019

Corporate Governance: Avoid The Groupthink Pitfall, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Consensus due to similar personal backgrounds, lack of diversity in views and failure to see things from others’ perspective can lead to bad decisions.


Board Independence As A Panacea To Tunnelling? An Empirical Study Of Related Party Transactions In Hong Kong And Singapore, Christopher C. H. Chen, Wai Yee Wan, Wei Zhang Sep 2018

Board Independence As A Panacea To Tunnelling? An Empirical Study Of Related Party Transactions In Hong Kong And Singapore, Christopher C. H. Chen, Wai Yee Wan, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this article, we examine a general question: is the legal transplantation of corporate governance rule effective in curtailing agency costs? Entering into the 21st century, we have seen reforms of corporate governance standards in the Far East since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, including in Hong Kong and Singapore. These reforms built on the Anglo-American model of corporate governance in the UK and US supported by broad academic literature of connecting better corporate governance with firm value and identifying the association of tunneling or wrongdoings with poor corporate governance practices. The idea is also to provide more checks-and-balances …


Managing The Risks Of Corporate Fraud: The Evidence From Hong Kong And Singapore, Wai Yee Wan, Christopher C. H. Chen, Chongwu Xia, Say Goo Jun 2018

Managing The Risks Of Corporate Fraud: The Evidence From Hong Kong And Singapore, Wai Yee Wan, Christopher C. H. Chen, Chongwu Xia, Say Goo

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Since the Asian financialcrisis of 1997, Hong Kong and Singapore have implemented reforms that promote independenceand monitoring competency of the boards of directors of their listed companies.However, with the advent of the financial crisis of 2007/2008, a wave of fraudcases prompts the question as to the effectiveness of these reforms. Analysing asample of 62 listed companies which are found to have committed fraud between2007 and 2014, and comparing against a matched sample of no-fraud companies, wefind that the fraud companies tend to either combine the roles of chairman andchief executive officer (or they are close family members) and have fewer …


Political Connection And Firm Value, James S. Ang, David K. Ding, Tiong Yang Thong Aug 2013

Political Connection And Firm Value, James S. Ang, David K. Ding, Tiong Yang Thong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the effect of political connection (PC) on company value in an environment where low PC is due to better institutions and not confounded by favorable social/cultural factors. We find that in Singapore, the only country that fits this description, PC in general adds little to the value of a company. However, in industries that are subject to more stringent government regulations, PC appears to be somewhat important. Robustness checks show that alternative PC variables give rise to similar results, and the addition of control variables do not drastically change the findings. Politically connected firms have higher managerial ownership …


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 …


Japanese Corporate Governance: Structural Change And Financial Performance, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa, Takashi Hikino, Hiroaki Miyoshi Dec 2007

Japanese Corporate Governance: Structural Change And Financial Performance, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa, Takashi Hikino, Hiroaki Miyoshi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes institutional and legal changes related to corporate governance and their impact on financial performance in Japan since the second half of the 1990s. We attempt to address two issues systematically: (1) how much the governance reforms of Japanese firms transformed the conventional system of alliance capitalism and managerial control; and (2) what economic outcomes those governance changes have yielded. As the Commercial Code and other legal and institutional frameworks were revised, Japanese firms experienced shifts in terms of stock ownership, corporate control and managerial organizations. Our empirical results show that the influence of new ownership composition and …


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 …


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.


The Effects Of Ownership And Capital Structure On Board Composition And Strategic Diversification In Japanese Corporations, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan Mar 2005

The Effects Of Ownership And Capital Structure On Board Composition And Strategic Diversification In Japanese Corporations, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The board of directors plays an important role in solving the agency problem between shareholders and management. This paper investigates the relationships between ownership and board structure with the diversification strategy of large Japanese firms. The results show that corporate nominee directors are associated with lower levels of product diversification of their investee firms. This suggests that nominee directors in large Japanese corporations see themselves representing specific interests and therefore investors should pay attention to board composition in order to assess the level of protection they can expect to receive. Even without any apparent agency problem with management, there remains …


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 …