For much of the past half-century, Japan's economic success has stimulated the interest of scholars from around the world. In the last decade, and particularly in the last two years, however, it is Japan's economic difficulties which have attracted the most attention. The very institutionswhose efficacy was earlier praised are now often criticised as being the core of Japan's economic problems.This volume brings together the research of many of the world's leading specialists on the Japanese economy to assess how Japan's distinctive economic institutions have operated in the past and how their evolution in the face of changing domestic and international circumstance s will shape theprospects for the Japanese economy in the 21st century. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of Japan's financial system and the changing character of Japanese firm governance, and to the changing role that government and the legal system play in Japan's economy. The authors find among manyother important conclusions that far-reaching regulatory reform will be needed so that a new rules-based system allowing greater scope for dispersed private initiative can emerge to restructure and regrow the Japanese economy.

The contributors to this study examine Japan's financial system, corporate governance, and the role of government and the legal system and assess how these institutions will affect Japanese industrial and commercial performance in the future.

After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.

This book deepens our understanding of how higher education governance has recently changed in the rapidly developing higher education systems of East Asia. Focusing on China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan, it explains the implications of how state-centered political systems interpret political and economic environments such as neoliberalism, as well as how each system is coping with global pressures. The book makes a valuable contribution to organization studies in higher education by investigating and detailing how individual higher education institutions are responding to their new environments.

While Japan's export-oriented economy has been advancing with astounding speed, significant differences remain between the management philosophy and techniques used within Japanese companies and those used in the West. These include the significant differences in the use of capital budgeting techniques, economic and political assessment of projects, decision-making styles, and techniques of corporate governance.

Written by a group of leading scholars from economics, law, sociology and management studies, this book examines recent changes in Japanese corporate governance. Each chapter presents original empirical analysis of the transformation of the Japanese firm and discusses the prospects and challenges for Japan's distinctive variety of capitalism.

This paper assesses the stability of the financial system in Japan. Although the financial system has remained stable, the low profitability environment is creating new risks, and pressures are likely to persist. The search for yield among banks has led some to expand their overseas activities, and more generally to a growth in real estate lending and foreign securities investments. Efforts to increase risk-based lending to small-and medium-sized enterprises are welcome, but many banks still need to develop commensurate credit assessment capacities. Stress tests suggest that the banking sector remains broadly sound, although market risks are increasing, and there are some vulnerabilities among regional banks.

Debates regarding corporate governance have become increasingly important in Japan as the post-war model of bank-based, stakeholder-oriented corporate governance faces the new pressures associated with globalization and growing investor demands for shareholder value. Bringing together a group of leading scholars from economics, law, sociology and management studies, this book looks at how the Japanese approach to corporate governance and the firm have changed in the post-bubble era.The contributions offer a unique empirical exploration of why and how Japanese firms are reshaping their corporate governance arrangements, leading to greater diversity among firms and new 'hybrid' forms of corporate governance. The book concludes by looking at what effect these incremental buttransformative changes may have on Japan's distinctive variety of capitalism.

Since the bursting of Japan’s bubble economy, from 1990 onwards, its multinational companies (MNCs) have faced new competitive challenges, and questions about the management practices on which they had built their initial success in global markets. Japanese engagement in the international economy has undergone a number of phases. Historically, Japanese MNCs learnt from foreign companies, frequently through strategic alliances. After the post-war ‘economic miracle’, Japanese manufacturers in particular converted themselves into MNCs, transferred their home-grown capabilities to overseas subsidiaries, and made an impact on the world economy. But the period after 1990 marked declining Japanese competitiveness, and asked questions about the ability of Japanese MNCs to be more responsive and global in their strategies, organization, and capabilities. It has been argued that the established management practices of Japanese MNCs inhibited adaptation to recent demands of global competition. This volume presents new case evidence on how Japanese MNCs have responded to the new challenges of the global market place, and it provides examples of how they have transformed strategies and competitive capabilities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

These two volumes analyze Japan from the Knowledge Economy perspective, covering a wide range of sectoral issues in development including the macro economic framework, education and skills training, the national innovation system, science and technology, information and communication technology, and infrastructure. While 'Volume 1' explores the four pillare of the 'Knowledge for Development' framework, the second volume presents up-to-date case studies of outstanding Japanese private companies that each characterize different aspects of the Knowledge Economy. By combining economics and business, these volumes allow readers to grasp the full scope of today's knowledge economy.