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Post-disaster governance is a popular discussion topic in disaster research, but in practice understanding of the issue is limited. This paper discusses recovery governance since the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, focusing on two dimensions: decentralisation and citizen participation in local governance. Regional Japan's socio-spatial vitality has been shrinking and weakening under the developmental state system. The 2011 disaster exposed vulnerabilities in the sociopolitical system. For a short time it appeared that local political space had been opened for alternative governance systems; however, only limited improvements have occurred in decentralisation reform and civic participation systems. Tsunami recovery was constrained and delayed by predisaster trajectories, although socio-spatial inequalities increased. The paper suggests the implications of this for the developmental state and argues that drastic action should be taken to rectify the faults of the socio-political system, to stop the disaster-affected area's decline, and to promote regional and community recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate headquarters control business units, the governing of which has emerged as a vital issue as business portfolios have grown increasingly complex due to diversification, globalization, and corporate group expansion via spinoffs and mergers and acquisitions. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; This study utilized questionnaire survey data from 251 firms listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The authors approached the issue of business unit governance by measuring the degree of decentralization and the intensity of monitoring, and compared the governance of internal business units with that of subsidiaries, and analyzed the impact of corporate governance characteristics on business unit governance. Findings |!|#8211; Comparing in-house business units and subsidiaries, the authors found a significant difference in their governance. The degree of decentralization toward subsidiaries was higher for strategic and personnel decision-making. However, the complementarity of decentralization and monitoring was not observed for subsidiaries, whereas it was for in-house business units. Subsidiary monitoring corresponding to decentralization was inadequate. Examining the relationship between corporate governance and business unit governance, the paper found that firms with reformed boards of directors and under a greater degree of pressure from capital markets monitored their business units more strictly. Originality/value |!|#8211; The paper shows how the business portfolios and governance arrangements of Japanese firms have changed since the 1990s, and analyzes business unit governance based on valuable data obtained from a questionnaire survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper aims to identify and compare the nature of decentralization that has emerged in three important Asian societies after a decade of their involvement in the decentralization movement. Design/methodology/approach -- Data from the first cycle of the program for international student assessment were analyzed to investigate educational decentralization in three Asian societies: Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. Cluster analysis was used to reveal the nature and extent of decentralization of the schooling systems in the three societies. Findings -- The results revealed four models of decentralization: highly centralized, school-driven, teacher-driven, and highly decentralized. Whilst the school-driven model was dominant in Hong Kong, indicating that the school itself is largely responsible for making school-related decisions, the centralized model was dominant in both Japan and Korea, indicating that authorities outside the school are largely responsible for making school-related decisions. Research limitations/implications -- The study is based on cross-sectional design and focuses mainly on secondary schooling systems in the three Asian societies. Originality/value -- OECD/PISA constitutes one of the most comprehensive and rigorous international databases about different aspects of educational systems. It provides a unique opportunity to assess the distribution of decision-making responsibilities between the different stakeholders in different education systems. This enables for the first time a country-wide comparison on issues of decentralization of various decision areas in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents four international strategy configurations, namely, emphasize on local responsiveness, emphasize on global efficiencies with some local advantages, emphasize on global efficiencies, and seeking to exploit local advantages and global efficiencies. Also, the paper presents the peculiarities of multinational companies' structure and design. Within the paper there are examples in order to illustrate the tradeoffs between local responsiveness and global efficiency and, also, examples that present the differences between organization structures in Japan and in the West. The paper underline the importance of formulation and implementation of international strategy in order to centralize/decentralized the value - chain activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous scholars are recognizing that paradoxes are indigenous to organizational functioning. Managers too are being challenged to do more and spend less, and delegate and know the details. As a corporate objective, neither efficiency nor innovation can be sacrificed. In this paper, we have attempted to capture this emerging trend empirically. Defining management of paradox as ‘managerial practices that realize the simultaneous accomplishment of multiple strategic objectives that are seemingly or actually incompatible,’ this paper explores how organizational capabilities of effectively dealing with paradox can be acquired. Specifically, the paper attempts to address two organizational mechanisms: decision-making structure and human resource practices (HRPs). Propositions deduced from the existing literature were tested with the data collected from 103 Korean firms and 136 Japanese firms. The data indicated that firms have to be multi-talented. It was found that firms that successfully accomplished innovation and efficiency objectives simultaneously were those that were able to mix paradoxical organizational practices: decentralization and control on the one hand and the three HRPs on the other. It was also found that the Japanese corporations were more apt in deploying paradoxical managerial practices than the Korean counterparts. The paper concludes by discussing a few theoretical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Using the Aston Centralization of Authority scale, this paper shows that Japanese organizations vary in their level of overall centralization of authority in decision-making, and in the level at which decisions in particular areas are made. In a sample of 48 heterogeneous Japanese manufacturing firms it is found that both spatial dispersion into multiple sites and higher levels of automation of technology increase centralization of authority, while large size and the increasing number of levels to which size gives rise, and greater task variability all have the opposite effect, i.e., they lower, somewhat, the levels at which decisions can be made. The implications of these findings for claims of 'bottom-up', participative decision-making in Japan's ringi system are discussed in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that Tokyo, Japan's renewed concentration of domestic and global economic activities has direct linkage to the current restructuring of the international division of labor and to the formation of the interregional spatial division of labor in greater Tokyo. It has been argued that a different production system in a different political economy and its globalization will result in different effects in the formation of a world city. Tokyo as a world city construct thus has more to do with the flexible Japanese production system and its globalization than with G. Hymer's world city model. Hymer's model is based on the centralization and decentralization of the fordist mass production system and its creation of an international division of labor in the 1970s. It reports that world cities vary only in the degree and timing of their integration into the world economy. Variations in the world economy itself are unthinkable. The concentration of economic activities in Tokyo is increasing the unevenness of development in Japan. As flexible production becomes more globalized, Tokyo increasingly serves the world economy's needs directly rather than serving those of Japan's regions as the domestic center for networks and linkages.

This paper examines a case of healthcare governance reform in a Japanese hospital to demonstrate how and why physicians may resist NPM ideals in healthcare. We find that the governance reform departed significantly from its idealized form. The intended structure of decentralized governance was ruptured by the CEO, with unanticipated consequences. The power of the medical school, arising out of the ikyoku system in the context of chronic shortages of physicians and the respect afforded to physicians by wider society, was played out in the hospital, with cost management taking a back seat. We find that the general patterns of interaction between and among key stakeholders in relation to accountability and the governance process are shaped by some form of verticality, monologues rather than dialogues, indirectness and silence rooted in Japanese cultural context. Cultural political economy approach guided us to examine both semiotic and extra semiotic features and their dialectical moments with key actors in assessing the limits of NPMs in non-Western contexts. • The role of healthcare professionals is crucial in execution of NPM reform in Japan. • Western centric governance reform departed significantly from its idealized form. • The power of medical school and the ikyoku shape the governance process. • Corporate board maintains harmony instead of seeking accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how larger Japanese firms, and in turn the Japanese economy, has restructured since the burst of Japan's asset-inflated economic bubble in 1989. Based on interviews, surveys, and analysis of the appointment calendars of 79 Japanese CEOs, this research examines changes in CEO priorities since 1989 and how these changes reflect larger shifts in the way business is conducted in larger Japanese firms. The authors find that Japanese CEOs and their firms are becoming much more focused on investor relations than on bank relations, more focused on media relations and promoting their firm to the market, and less focused on government relations as Japan undergoes deregulation. The authors also find that Japanese CEOs are focusing more on external factors, with greater emphasis on shareholders and less attention to employees. Within the firm, Japanese decision-making is becoming more top-down than middle-up-down, as well as less hierarchical with fewer levels of management. In addition, Japanese CEOs and their firms are focusing more on outsourcing and hiring non-regular workers. The most surprising finding, however, is the absence of radical change in terms of personnel-related priorities and practices, in light of the length and degree of Japan's recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is Japanese-style management, which is probably best described as a participative management style, anything more than the participative management techniques already well described in the U.S. management literature? Hall and Leidecker explore this question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses economies of scale in the manufacturing industries of various countries. Comments from several economists are taken from several contemporary journals. The author discusses the differences between big and small businesses. Because of numerous advantages seen in small business as well as changes in the market, the author believes that big businesses that exist in the traditional sense are dying out. The growing popularity of decentralization in management is discussed. The overall size of a firm is seen as largely irrelevant for competitive advantage. Diversification to build size for the sake of size is the wrong strategy for most companies in the U.S.

The method of candidate selection used by parties can influence a number of outcomes related to party organization and representation. In the past decade, Japan’s political parties have increasingly experimented with an ‘open recruitment’ system for selecting new candidates for national elections, but the degree of centralization in the process varies by party. We use candidate and voter survey data to assess whether the new system of recruitment has resulted in intraparty differences in the policy positions of candidates, and their distance from party supporters and the median voter. We find evidence that the new candidate selection method has resulted in the nomination of more centrist and urban-inclined candidates, an indication of greater responsiveness to voters, and that they exhibit higher levels of policy cohesion than their counterparts selected through traditional methods. However, these differences depend on the degree of party centralization in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition phase in river and water resources management in Japan is discussed from wider points of view, such as the decentralization of public governance, privatization of water management, grand design of the nation and water security. Historical developments, consequences and recent movements are introduced, and future directions are considered. Japan has the potential to integrate elemental knowledge and technologies into a system to solve world water issues, and to support the sustainability of healthy and sound conditions for human well-being in the world through providing a safe, stable and sustainable water management framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the host country experience of Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) affects their staffing policies for executive manager positions at foreign affiliates. Hypotheses on executive staffing policies for foreign affiliates are tested using survey data collected from 103 Japanese affiliates in Korea. Findings show that the level of global integration and the degree of centralization of decision-making positively affect an assignment of parent country nationals as executive managers of foreign affiliates. We further find that foreign affiliates’ experience in a host country moderates the effects of both global integration and centralization on staffing decisions for the affiliates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the level and rate of change of centralization within business organizations in Japan and the U.S. which is not the same as employment-system centralization but is related to it. Senior human resources executives were asked about the hierarchy (from line managers up to headquarters) where decisions are being made about employee participation, union policies, headcount and managerial careers. It has been found that during the period 1996-2001, U.S. companies were decentralizing more rapidly than Japan in all areas except the development of union policies, a surprising fact given that U.S. companies started out at a lower level of centralization. Hence, the centralization gap between Japan and the U.S. has widened, not narrowed. Japan's persistent organizational centralization can be explained, in part, by using Henry Katz's framework. At least in large companies, unions remain more prevalent in Japan: the density rate for the survey firms was 65 per cent in Japan versus 16 per cent in the U.S.

This article is concerned with an analytical summary of how the Japanese container ports have been taking place overcapacity problem in a systematic way. It focuses on institutional aspects of the overcapacity problem from the viewpoint of accounting cost and opportunity cost. The first issue arises due to the port authority's accounting system and insufficient disclosures of financial statements of port business to the port users and taxpayers. The second issue is inherently related to resource allocation between the state government and local governments through the budget system and income distribution programmes. Since a proper allocation of economic resources in the port sector as a whole will depend on investment decisions being taken within a coherent framework for ensuring that costs are passed on to port users, these issues are closely related to each other in reality. Although the budget system is completely controlled by the state government, the local governments have authoritative power over port planning, financing, and management, which is assured by the Ports and Harbours Law. The overcapacity problem appears to be an inevitable result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study suggests that Japanese competitive advantage in complex-product industries is at least partly due to differences in value chain governance and interfirm asset co-specialization. Comparative data are offered which indicate that U.S. firms rely largely on markets and hierarchies to facilitate exchange, whereas Japanese firms rely largely on "hybrid" governance or alliances. The empirical findings suggest that Japanese automotive firms (value chains) have been able to achieve a competitive advantage over their U.S. counterparts by effectively using hybrid/alliance governance for three primary reasons: (1) Japanese automotive value chains are characterized by greater interfirm asset co-specialization than U.S. chains. In particular, greater human asset co-specialization between; firms results in superior coordination, information sharing1; and learning which is critical in complex-product industries, (2) hybrids/alliances as employed by Japanese automakers realize virtually all of the advantages of hierarchy (e.g., asset co-specialization) without the disadvantages (e.g., loss of market discipline, loss of flexibility, higher labor costs), and (3) Japanese automotive value chains incur lower transaction costs than U.S. value chains. Thus, alliances, as structured in Japan, simultaneously realize the benefits of decentralization and competition without sacrificing economies of scale, coordination, or co-specialization of assets. These findings support transaction cost theories which suggest that effectively aligning governance structures with transactions will result in efficiency advantages. However, inconsistent with extant transaction cost theory, findings from this study suggest that: (1) hybrid governance may be more efficient than hierarchical governance under conditions of uncertainty, and (2) transaction costs do not necessarily increase with an increase in asset specificity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]