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In recent times, international comparative studies on managers’ beliefs regarding ethical/unethical leadership have increased in number. These studies focus on both Eastern and Western countries. However, although these previous studies focused on the effects of national culture, they did not pay sufficient attention to the effects of institutions. Moreover, these studies covered only a few countries. Despite Japan’s strong influence on the world economy, it has not been included in previous studies on ethical leadership. Thus, to reveal unexplored factors—particularly cultural and institutional factors—and to determine the generalizability of previous findings, this study used a qualitative research method to examine Japanese business managers’ beliefs about ethical/unethical leadership. The data revealed the convergence and divergence in beliefs regarding ethical/unethical leadership between managers in Japan and in other countries. The analysis identified mostly the same themes of ethical/unethical leadership as found in other countries albeit with different distributions. In addition, We identified new themes that may be specific to Japan or that were neglected in previous studies. Moreover, this study suggests the necessity of considering each society’s history of business ethics and current ethics-related institutional contexts in ethical/unethical leadership studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars studying upper echelons have found that executive succession can serve as an important adaptation mechanism. The bulk of these findings, however, derive from market-based governance settings, which raises an issue of contextual robustness. This study examines this issue by investigating the link between executive succession and strategic change in Japan, a context noted for relatively weak market-based corporate governance and lack of board independence. We find a greater likelihood of strategic change after non-routine executive succession, with the extent of change unaffected by firm performance. Routine succession in the case of a powerful prior president leads to less post-succession strategic change. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]