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Evidence suggests that “single-market” alliances are more likely to form between firms in similar socially determined status positions. However, in international alliances, firms come from different status interfaces and foreign partners may become status competitors. Hence, the preference for partners with similar socially derived status positions in their respective markets, or status homophily, is unclear in ‘international’ partner selections. This analysis aims to better understand this issue.

This research explores status homophily in international alliance formation using a database of hand-collected tombstone announcements for US initial public offering syndicates involving Japanese securities firms from 1975 through 1984.

Results suggest that firms are attracted to partners who occupy similar socially derived status positions in their own home markets. Additionally, high-status host-country firms may signal status differences within alliances to reduce status competition from high-status foreign partners.

This research indicates that “international” alliance research needs to consider socially derived status positions. Additionally, academics and practitioners alike can benefit from the knowledge that status signaling within alliances can be a type of competitive behavior between cooperating firms.

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.

The analysis of manufacturer-supplier relationships in Japan has contributed significantly to the advancement of interorganizational theory. It has yielded broad evidence that long-term collaborative partnerships enable firms to exploit the incentive benefits of market-based exchange while reaping the learning and coordination benefits of internalization within a corporate hierarchy. In this paper, we go beyond the issues of trust and cooperation that have occupied much prior theory and research on supplier relations in considering another dimension along which collaborative agreements may be arrayed. We build on transaction and network theories, respectively, to propose two types of long-term collaborative ties: dyadic or bilateral governance and network embeddedness. A comparative analysis of collaborative relationships in product and process development between two Japanese TV manufacturing companies and their suppliers provides empirical evidence for the distinctive effect of network ties over dyadic relationships for collaborative knowledge-sharing.

This paper explores the empirical relationships between the global orientation of the top management team, geocentrism of the staffing and promotion system, and boundary spanning structures and processes with the individual outcome variables of employee commitment to, and excitement about, their job and organization in ten units of two highly diversified high-technology Japanese multinational corporations. The results from the study show that employee perceptions of the top management team’s global orientation, geocentrism, and boundary spanning structures and processes influence individual attitudes of employees in Japanese MNCs. The implications of these results for further research and managerial practice are discussed.

Our understanding of Japanese supply relationships comes primarily from studying the automobile industry. This paper identifies three elements of the automobile industry that, although generally assumed to be widespread, are largely absent in the notebook computer industry, leading to a different pattern of supply relationships: a sizable pool of external suppliers; the feasibility of shukko and cross-shareholding to strengthen supply relationships; and the adequacy of these means to manage external supply relationships. This finding debunks the myth of a monolithic model of “Japanese-style” supply relationships and illustrates the importance of idiosyncratic elements of an industry’s environment on its supply relationships.

Until around 1980, Japanese companies occupied a predominant position in Asia. Their Asian operations are managed by Japanese persons and in the Japanese language. This Japanese-style international management is well suited to transfer technology and know-how from Japanese parent companies to their overseas subsidiaries. But, it does not provide opportunities to local managerial and professional employees to display their abilities and initiatives. Japanese companies also have problems in Japan. They invest more in foreign countries than in Japan, which results in the hollowing out at home. Japanese companies are managed by old men and thus lack a strong leadership. Japanese multinationals are facing a challenging task of management innovation both at home and abroad.

This paper questions the issue of the dynamics of corporate governance in Japan using a conceptual framework adapted from North’s theory of institutional change. National systems of corporate governance can indeed be considered a particular case of institutions. We thus suggest transposing North’s propositions about institutional change to national systems of corporate governance. As an illustration for our propositions, we choose to use a case study: the so-called Sogo crisis. The Sogo group is a Japanese chain of department stores, which has encountered financial problems in the late 1990s. The handling of those difficulties by the firm’s main stakeholders highlights both the recent changes in the Japanese system of corporate governance and the resistance opposed to them.

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.