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Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.

The author conducted in-depth interviews with ten IR managers at large, listed Japanese companies in Kyoto and Tokyo and two managers at foreign investment banks in Tokyo, between 2018 and 2021.

This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies the author looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy-based customs.

This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of spinoff entrepreneurs in the post-bubble Japan and ultimately to facilitate policy reforms that benefit entrepreneurs most in need of support.

This study adopts a survey of Japanese entrepreneurs from 2003 to 2013. Exploiting the survey questions, the authors separate spinoff startups from the non-spinoff startups. Using this data set, this study first performs a logistic regression, followed by a chi-squared independence test between spinoff startups and firm performance.

This study finds that while both human and social capital predict the probability of a firm’s positive performance, industry experience was the strongest predictor for the probability of performance.

As Garvin (1983) stated, most research on spinoffs are limited to both industry type and location. The theoretical contribution of this study is to broaden the applicability of current entrepreneurship theories by considering industries beyond technological startups. The practical value of this study is to begin evaluating policies and their interaction effect with cultural context.

Hong Kong has a global reputation as an entrepreneurial hub. The Japanese restaurant community has grown and evolved over the last three decades into what many consider as a natural secondary market for Japanese food. As such, several Japanese restaurateurs have come to Hong Kong to enter Hong Kong’s premium Japanese restaurant market. The purpose of this paper is to explore this market of Japanese restaurateurship in Hong Kong.

One of the closest methodologies within the topic and discipline from Baldwin (2017) focuses on Japaneseness as a measurement of culinary authenticity examining Hong Kong’s Michelin rated restaurants. Here, the qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with the chefs of two sets of premium Japanese restaurants from Japan that expanded in Hong Kong, Sushi Iwa and Sushi Yoshitake. As this paper focuses on the premium and high-end market of Japanese chefs and restaurateurs in Hong Kong, the researcher combined the approaches of Kawahara & Speece and Baldwin to pursue a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews.

For this research, the interview process had to be divided into two stages. The first was to speak with long standing members of Hong Kong’s Japanese restaurant community. The common thread amongst the restaurateurs was that they were either the sole proprietor or a partner who was financially vested within the company not a form of sweat equity. To respect the privacy of the interviews, questions about exact monetary amounts, number of shares and equity or anything regarding holdings were not asked. The idea was to only examine their responses within the criteria of the research objectives.

As the Michelin and premium market of Japanese cuisine is so small, this research can only represent a certain part of the market. Future research could examine other Japanese restaurateurs outside of this market that could be examined to gain a wider perspective of the entrepreneurial strategies they used to start-up their business in Hong Kong.

As research in this area is very limited, this paper helps bring restaurateurship in Hong Kong into the academic front. Restaurants are one of the most common entry points for new entrepreneurs in hospitality. This paper may help shed some light on how foreign investment entrepreneurship has been achieved in Asia.

Although Asia's rise in the global economy is increasingly recognized, international business (IB) interactions between Japan and India remain under-commented. These interactions are especially salient due to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 17 (UN SDG 17), which focuses on partnerships. This study updates and analyzes the strategic orientation of Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) in India.

Following a subjectivist approach, this study employs a constructivist epistemology. Utilizing mixed methods, it obtains primary data from interviews and informal conversations with senior personnel from Japan and India and secondary data from archives. These data then undergo manual organic thematic analysis.

The study reveals instances of Japanese MNEs diverging from traditional ethnocentric orientations, such as senior management's growing commitment to India. The findings also indicate that the transformation to a polycentric orientation remains incomplete.

The study uncovers themes impeding a polycentric transformation, offering insights for strengthening international partnerships and emphasizing the necessity of prioritizing local demands and cultural expectations.

Clues to strengthening IB contribute to attain UN SDG 17, especially given the advanced-emerging characteristics of the Japan–India dyad.

This study’s research makes a novel contribution to the literature on international strategic orientations by providing insights into a rare dyad – namely, Japanese MNE expansion in India. It is also a valuable and timely addition consistent with current beyond-China business diversification trends.

This study examines the case of an initial training, called “Dojo”, invented and implemented at a production site in the Czech Republic. It clarifies the initial training program implementation process and offers a conceptual framework for cooperative management of subsidiary activities at the site and firm.

This study conducts an in-depth analysis of qualitative data from the Czech production site over a five-year period. The theoretical base is the theorization and labeling phase of management innovation (MI), the final phase of which legitimizes a new management practice. Interview data, archival data, pictures and financial data are used for the analysis.

To legitimize the Dojo in the operational flow controlled by the site and firm, the Czech production site acquires validation of the Dojo from employees and board members of the Japanese and European headquarters, helping the site build trustful relationships with them. Training programs, process standardization and skills standardization of the workers offer benefits to the trainees, production site and firm.

The authors offer theoretical insights into MI at the subsidiary-level, which past studies have not differentiated at the firm-level. The authors also provide details of the implementation and management of initial training for newly hired blue-collar workers at the production site. The findings complement related literature on human resource management and operational management.

This study aims to reflect on quality, sustainability and resilience as emerging organisational priorities within total quality management (TQM) and organisational excellence.

The paper uses a conceptual approach based on reflection and theoretical studies on the philosophical foundations of quality, excellence, resilience and sustainability as cornerstones for organisational excellence. Bearing in mind that sustainable excellence rests upon a combination of systemic and soft issues that define organisational ability for resilience and sustainability, there is a need to analyse and reflect on short business cases from world-leading companies and further reflect on the fundamental principles, which have helped such companies to survive, grow and sustain. This study includes such a business case – the LEGO case. In addition, a Japanese case has been included. Japanese training material on human motivation developed in the 1980s exemplifies how company managers were trained, at that time, to understand and practice human motivation, excellence principles and tools.

Organisational excellence constitutes an evolving concept as the world becomes more chaotic and interconnected with multiple disruptive shocks. Organisational excellence challenges the inflexibilities of Newtonian mindsets, recognising the paramount importance of interactions and further underlining the significance of invisible elements such as human potentiality, motivation and values that formulate the principles of organisational excellence.

The paper investigates the notions of quality, resilience and sustainability and their relation to motivation and organisational excellence within the framework of business management and TQM. A world-leading company – LEGO – will be used to exemplify the theoretical findings together with the Japanese Motivation Training Programme case.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implication of Japanese government venture capital (VC) policies for future research and to provide basis for policymakers and practitioners.

This is an academic literature review of available peer-reviewed publications on government VC policies. This paper discusses and analyses the current state and issues of the Japanese government VC policies regarding three research questions: What do Japanese government VCs do? Do they contribute to their portfolios? and Do they contribute to the development of VC market?

There are mainly two findings in this paper: It is effective to establish a complementary relationship with private VCs for Japanese government VCs to contribute to their portfolios; Japanese government should simultaneously continue to make and review policies for the VC market, the stock market, the entrepreneur sector and the environment surrounding them by its strategic long-term commitment to contribute to the development of VC market and new technology-based firms in Japan.

As there are only a few studies on recently strengthened Japanese government VC policies, this paper provides an in-depth discussion on these Japanese VC policies, which can be used for future research and as a valuable resource for policymakers and practitioners.

This study aims to establish a Japanese-style healthcare program customized for Japan and Asia under ISO 9001: 2008 (ISO: International Organization for Standardization) to improve problem areas and to inspect the effectiveness of the program. Furthermore, the authors wanted to create this health program using the ISO widely available in Asian countries and make an international contribution.

The authors implemented a 6- to 10-month health program in Minowa Town, Matsumoto City and Nagano City in Japan. This study assessed findings from pedometric, anthropometric and blood pressure measurements and physical fitness, blood chemistry and brain function tests.

The comparisons were made by examining the interaction effects between groups of participants. Groups from three regions in Japan showed significant differences on the physical fitness tests; regarding the 10-meter obstacle walk, the results of the Minowa participants showed the greatest improvement and the Matsumoto participants showed the second greatest improvement. In the six-min walk, the time of the Minowa participants significantly improved.

This health education program, which has been conducted by the Japanese authors since 1998, measures anthropometry, brain function and physical fitness and performs blood tests before and after the program and it measures energy consumption with a pedometer during the program. With the aim of improving exercise via encouragement from friends and a sense of community with fellow participants, participants learn together with hands-on training in tai chi and aerobics about the importance of ongoing exercise and proper nutrition. This health education met the Health Education ISO in 2014.

Since 2010, Nagano Prefecture, including Minowa Town, Matsumoto City and Nagano City, where our study was carried out, has been the area with the highest life expectancy rates in Japan.

The authors want to make this health promotion through ISO widely available in Asian countries and an international contribution.

This study aimed to appropriately establish a Japanese-style healthcare program under the ISO 9001:2008 to improve problem areas and inspect its effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development and assessment of learning support environments for academic writing that utilize ICT, such as e-learning and online tutoring, in Japanese higher education. First, the authors introduce the design of an e-learning writing program for the Japanese language and assess whether the program is an effective learning support tool for undergraduates. Second, the authors analyze and assess online tutoring support for academic writing and clarify the merits and disadvantages of online and offline tutoring at writing centers, then suggest instructional strategies by analyzing the writing tutoring process.

The authors adopted e-learning goals to assess its effectiveness. The authors asked the participants questions they could answer from five-point scales, conducted a paired t-test, and included a free description-type questionnaire. Then, to assess online tutoring, the 12 students took pre- and post-test questionnaires, after which the authors conducted a Wilcoxon signed rank test. In addition, the authors carried out a Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test in order to confirm differences in satisfaction level and the effectiveness of face-to-face tutoring and online tutoring.

By analyzing the pre- and post-test results, the t-test confirmed that the students found the e-learning system to be effective for nurturing academic literacy. This means the system is appropriate as a support tool for nurturing academic writing, especially writing knowledge and rules, and university must provide a comprehensive learning support environment including e-learning. Next, the authors found no statistically significant difference between face-to-face and online tutoring, although some problems with the writing process remained. So online tutoring has opportunity to promote autonomous learning. The research results make it clear that because of writing centers’ potential and their effectiveness in utilizing ICT tools.

Research findings about academic writing are to improve the tutoring process and writing strategies, such as the use of ICT for academic writing support like e-learning, online tutoring, do not exist. To provide learning opportunity to learners and promote autonomous learning, e-learning and online tutoring are important. For the reasons noted above, it is necessary to provide an alternative writing support environment to students in Japan. Therefore, the authors report on and assess the development of learning support environments for e-learning programs and online tutoring for academic writing at the undergraduate level in Japan.