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This paper examines the role of the zaibatsu holding company in corporate governance. Early in the 20th century, Japan's zaibatsu conglomerates introduced organizational innovation to deal with the problems attendant on growth and diversification. By the early 1920s, each zaibatsu had established a holding company, while it separated its various businesses into joint‐stock companies. The holding company of the zaibatsu monitored and audited affiliated companies, and controlled key business decisions, besides frequently dispatching directors to the affiliated companies. The efficacy of holding‐company governance is tested quantitatively, comparing ROE between zaibatsu affiliated firms and non‐zaibatsu firms, using panel data for 135 firms from 1922 to 1936. Controlling for the effects of company scale, industry‐specific shocks and macro‐shocks, it is found that zaibatsu‐affiliated firms clearly outperformed the other companies. This result supports the hypothesis that the zaibatsu holding company successfully played the role of monitoring the affiliated companies. Zaibatsu also disciplined non‐affiliated companies in the capital market, frequently executing takeovers, which contributed to restructuring the targeted companies and improving their performance. At a time when holding companies have just been legalized once more in Japan, the history of these pre‐war models represents an instructive precedent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Institutional and semi-institutional networks between employers and educational institutions have been noted as important mechanisms in the transition from school to work in Japan. At the university level, long-term trust relationships between universities and companies were important ties in the transition of science graduates. During the 1980s and early 1990s, institutionally embedded alumni networks also formed a distinctive transition path between high-ranked universities and large corporations for non-science graduates. However, the lost decade of economical stagnation has been accompanied by changes in the structures of the labor market and the transition process of university graduates. In recent years, the institutional and semi-institutional linkages between universities and corporations show strong tendencies toward disbandment. This paper analyzes these structural transformations in the transition from university to work in Japan. The current deinstitutionalization tendencies are the result of new forms of behavior among the corporate actors as well as the university graduates. These structural changes are not only a result of the economic stagnation and the falling demand for university graduates in the labor market, but also are a reflection of changes in the social values and attitudes of the younger generation of university graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the relationship between the evolution of corporate structure and the structure of the financial systems within the U.S., British, German, French and Japanese economies during the first half of the twentieth century. The financial system of each of these economies exerted an important influence on the development of corporate structure, but did so largely through facilitating, rather then determining, organizational innovation. The financial system of each of these economies influenced the selection environment within which firms developed, but this environment reflected the operation of other factors as well. The relationship between the evolution of corporate and financial structure is an interactive one that exhibits considerable path-dependence; the array of economic and technological opportunities available to one firm or to one economy contrasts with that faced by another firm or economy at a different historical moment.

This essay describes the reform of Japan's national universities resulting from the enactment of the National University Corporations Law (Kokuritsu Daigaku Hōjin-hō) in April 2003, which aimed at converting all the national universities into corporate entities (kokuritsu daigaku hōjin).The intention of this law is to effect major changes in the heretofore self-governing structure of national universities and to introduce a management system based on the corporate organization style.The National University Corporations Law will lead to a major transformation of universities from sites of research and education grounded in traditional basic research into corporate-like organizations which respond sensitively to social and market needs and which provide more practical research and education services. However, the increased power of the Ministry of Education resulting from incorporation may also limit the academic freedom and autonomy of Japan's national universities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Presents an article which focuses on multitasking and technical changes within Japanese firms. Problems faced by employees of large corporations when the come up with an idea; How multiskilled workers exhibit lower turnover levels.