Emerging Patterns of Corporate Governance among Japanese Firms - Converging to Any Specific Model?

This conference addresses the evolving patterns of corporate governance among Japanese corporations since the mid-1990s. The Japanese firm is now facing a fundamental challenge and transformation of its postwar corporate governance institutions. The main bank system, cross-shareholding, lifetime employment, and Japanese-style management appear to be eroding, but have not disappeared. New patterns of corporate governance have also been enabled through legal reforms, innovations in corporate finance, and shifting boundaries of firms. However, little consensus exists among experts about the true extent and impact of reforms. Do these changes mean that Japan now converging on the U.S. model? Or has Japan made progress in developing a new and distinct approach to corporate governance? Have reforms been adequate to promote changes beneficial to company practice and performance?

The conference brings together leading international experts to present and discuss new empirical findings on Japanese corporate governance established through past and ongoing RIETI research projects on this theme based on selections from a forthcoming book, Corporate Governance in Japan: Organizational Diversity and Institutional Change (edited by Masahiko Aoki, Gregory Jackson and Hideaki Miyajima for Oxford University Press 2005). A key issue will be to understand the growing diversity among Japanese corporations as firms adopt reforms to different degrees and in different combinations. Greater diversity places in question to notion of a coherent and homogeneous "Japanese model," and points to a new agenda for research in understanding the diversity of corporate governance within a national system.