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The relationship between parent firms and their subsidiaries is a crucial aspect of corporate governance, and is increasingly complex in the global environment. We analyze an organizational arrangement quite common in Japan, the corporate spinoff, focusing on the relationship between parent firms in the Japanese service sector and their spinoff subsidiaries. The level of parental ownership is negatively related to the parent firm's net income and number of subsidiaries, but positively related to its advertising expenditures. In addition, parent firms tend to have lower ownership of more profitable subsidiaries. The ownership arrangement between the parent and the subsidiary appears to be based on issues broader than direct profit maximization.

As companies grow and increase the number of products they have on offer, they generally change and adapt their organizational structures, in order to arrange their resources and product mix in ways that will create value. We analyze various corporate structures that have been adopted by U.S., European, and Japanese companies, in the context of the resource‐based view of the firm. These corporate structures include functional, divisional, conglomerate diversification, core competence‐based diversification, and keiretsu. We also identify an emerging structure. This recent development is a network of alliances, aimed at pursuing economies of scale, scope, and speed.

I discuss Eleanor Westney’s significant contributions to the field of Japanese business studies in four regards. First, her genuine interest in Japan and her deep knowledge of Japan and its language drove her thorough investigation of Japanese business and management. Second, her disciplinary approach to Japanese business and society has added value to the studies of Japanese businesses by linking idiosyncratic phenomena to general sociological perspectives. Third, she played a bridging role, facilitating interactions between the Western and Japanese academic communities. Finally, she has been extremely positive, encouraging, and inspiring to people worldwide working in the field. Westney’s contribution to academia clearly reaches beyond the field of Japanese business studies and extends to the entire field of international business and R&D/innovation management.

Recently, Japanese commercial banks have experienced increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. M&As allow rapid downsizing and increased scale economies, while avoiding massive layoffs. Faced with the pressures of globalization and a difficult domestic economic environment, some Japanese banks appear to have shifted their operational focus from developing growth-enabling core competencies to reducing organizational costs. Keiretsu relationships are changing accordingly, with individual groups adapting in different ways. Most Japanese banks experienced extensive M&A activity at earlier points in their corporate histories. The recent flurry of M&As in the banking sector is nothing new, but rather a resurgence of past practices.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Struggling economies provide an interesting venue for international management researchers to build and test theory. Struggling economies are characterized by conflict and confrontation between established forces trying to impose conformity and emerging forces seeking variety. Economies once healthy, but in sustained recession, are also fertile sites for exploring the conflict between problem-solving based on traditionally, but no longer, successful strategies and new solutions brought in from outside. Struggling economies also present opportunities for examining the interaction between people and structures, where established relationships are open to question. This volume explores change in one struggling economy – Japan. In doing so, it seeks to draw from the experience of Japanese companies in extending international management theory beyond the boundaries of that one country.

This paper examines the evolution of debt and equity ties among keiretsu firms between the early 1990s and the later part of the decade. During this time frame, the stable shareholding relations characteristic of the Japanese inter-corporate network faced significant pressures from the opening of the Japanese equity market and globalization of financial markets. We investigate whether the traditional “stakeholder model” of the Japanese firm is threatened by North American “shareholder” models. Using multiple measures of keiretsu ties, our analysis suggests this is not the case. Overall, we provide evidence of strengthening ties, although in the case of equity, there has been an evolution away from institutional investors.