• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.175-181
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• 2022

Malmendier and Tate (2005) and Aktas et al. (2019) suggested that overconfident managers will invest if they have sufficient internal funds. Still, they will save internal funds instead of reducing investment if they have insufficient internal funds because they perceive more substantial financial constraints than other managers. This study examines whether overconfident managers will not invest when the financial crisis makes it difficult to raise external funds. In particular, during the financial crisis in Japan, banks simultaneously provided active monitoring and financing to firms with strong relationships with banks. Therefore, this study can also examine the relationship between overconfident managers and bank behavior by focusing on Japanese firms. This study examines whether overconfident managers increase their investment in firms with strong relationships with banks during the financial crisis. The results of this study showed that overconfident managers, especially their firms with strong relationships with banks, reduce investments more than other managers during the financial crisis. This study suggests that Japanese banks reduced financial constraints and exerted strong corporate governance on Japanese firms during the financial crisis.

• IE interfaces
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.406-413
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• 1999

In this study, we analyzed the innovation pattern of product and process between Korean, Japanese and German chemical firms. To do this study, a mail survey was chosen as the data collection method. For the empirical study, 36 Korean, 35 Japanese and 50 German chemical firms were analyzed. The major results are indicated as follows: (1) The Korean and Japanese firms have focused more on the process innovation, while the German firm have focused more on the product innovation. (2) The Korean and Japanese firms have oriented more to cost saving, while the German firms have oriented more market share. Based on these findings, the Korean firms have no purse simultaneously product and process innovation for strengthening of international. competitiveness, but the direction of the innovation patterns depends on the situations of the nation, industry and company.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.9-20
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• 2018

Global rating agencies, such as Moody's and S&P, have assigned credit ratings to corporate bonds issued by Japanese firms since 1980s. Local Japanese rating agencies, such as R&I and JCR, have more market share than the global raters. We examine the yield spreads of 1,050 yen-denominated corporate bonds issued by financial firms in Japan from 1998 to 2014 and find no evidence that bonds rated by at least one global agency are associated with a significant reduction in the cost of debt as compared to those rated by only local rating agencies. Unlike non-financial firms, the reputation effect of global rating agencies does not exist for Japanese financial firms. We also observe that firms with less information asymmetry are more likely to acquire ratings from Moody's or S&P. Additionally, the firm's financial profile does not affect its choice to seek out ratings from global raters. Our findings are contradictory to those by Han, Pagano, and Shin (2012), who employ bonds issued by non-financial firms in Japan. Our conjecture is that the asymmetric nature of financial firms makes investors less likely to depend on a credit risk assessment by rating agencies in determining the yields of new bonds.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.315-320
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• 2013

The aim of this study is to compare efficiency and Total Factor Productivity(TFP) between Korean and Japanese construction firms in Korea and Japan over the period of 2005-2011. The results of this study are as follows. Efficiency scores of Korean construction firms are 0.797, and Japanese construction firms are 0.921. Second, annual total factor productivity growth of Korean construction firms is 0.5% and technical progress do much for TFP decrease. However Japanese construction firms marked annual increasing of 2.5% of TFP. Third, technical progress contributed in TFP increase of construction firms in Korea. Korean construction firms, however, relatively lagged behind Japanese construction firms in technical progress. Therefore, Korean construction firms need strategies to achieve technical advances including adopting new technology or process innovation to maintain competitiveness, survive, and develop in the future competition with Japan.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.217-226
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to compare relative efficiency Korean and Japanese construction firms over the period of 2000-2013, and to analysis relative efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This study employs DEA in analyzing of 7 Korean construction firms and 8 Japanese construction firms using 2 input and 1 output variables. The efficiency results of this study is temporarily lowered due to IT Bubble Decay and Global Financial Crisis. The efficiency of Korean construction firms from 2000-2001 is lower Japanese construction firms, but the efficiency of Korean construction firms from 2002-2013 is higher Japanese construction firms. These results mean that the management of Korean construction firms were operating more efficiently than Japanese construction firms.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.467-490
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• 2010

This paper compared the cases of Korea and Japan on the basis of three research goals as follows. Above all, this paper tries to illuminate differences in logistics policies for China in Korea and Japan at governmental levels after understanding their distinct features. Then, after investigating investments of Korean and Japanese firms in China and their specific cases at corporate levels, this paper tries to illuminate similarities and differences of corporate strategies in Korean and Japanese logistics firms. Finally, this paper attempts to derive implications for Korean governments and firms through the comparative study. Main results of this study are as follows. First, even though logistics policies of Korean and Japanese government are similar in admitting the significance of China, Japanese policies are broader by admitting the significance of cooperating with ASEAN nations. Second, Japanese firms provide more diverse entire logistics services and also retained wider logistics networks than Korean counterparts in Chinese logistics markets. Thus, Korean logistics firms need to pursue to establish strategic cooperation with other foreign firms in China.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.89-115
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• 1994

Japanese firms have developed their own distinctive human resource management(HRM) practices for R&D scientists and engineers. These practices consist of homogeneity of work group, standardized in-house training programs, great standardization and company control of careers, and broad job rotation following the process of commercialization of developed technology. These practices facilitate human and informational exchange and sharing between basic laboratories and development departments as well as between R&D and marketing department which contribute to the ket competitive advantage of Japanese products. But recently Japanese firm are forced to change their HRM practices. They face some srious problems in continuing their long0standing strategy of being a rapid and skillful‘ technology follower’,drawing on the basic research performed in the advanced nations and embodying it in products that are produced with high quality at relatively lower cost. There is a growing trend of strengthening basic research among Japanese firms today. In accordance with the emphasis on basic research, Japanese firms have been adopting new HRM practices for scientists and engineers which are in the opposite direction of the traditional one. These newly developed practices stress on individual vitality rather than group cohesiveness from the fusion of individual difference. These include heterogeneity of work group, multiple career paths to be chosen by individuals, incentive plan based individual performance.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.92-115
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• 2012

The problem Japanese universities face is exactly the same as that of German universities: no international recognition in world rankings of universities despite their high levels of postwar economic and technological developments. This was indeed one reason why world-class Japanese firms, such as Toyota and Sony, have avoided working closely with Japanese universities for R&D partnership and new technology commercialization. To resolve this problem, the Japanese government has continuously implemented aggressive policies of the internationalization, privatization, liberalization, and privatization of universities since the onset of the economic recession in 1989 in order to revitalize the Japanese economy through radical innovation projects between universities and firms. National projects of developing medical robots for Japan's ageing society are some of the ambitious examples that emphasize feed-forward learning in innovation. However, this paper argues that none of these programs of fostering university-firm alliances toward feed-forward learning has been successful in promoting the world ranking of Japanese universities, although they showed potentials of reinforcing their conventional strength of introducing $kaizen$ through feedback learning of tacit knowledge. It is therefore argued in this paper that Japanese universities and firms should focus on feedback learning as a way to motivate firm-university R&D alliances.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.387-407
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• 2005

This paper is to study globalization motives and strategies of Japanese and Korean industries by analyzing the causes and patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) of the firms of the two countries during the 1980s and 1990s. First we develop a FDI function from the profit maximizing model of firms. Then we use regression analysis to determine internally driving-out factors and externally-inducing factors. Japanese FDI strategy has gone through three different stages; from natural resource-seeking investment in the 1950s and 1960s to market-expansion investment in the 1970s and 1980s and to a combination of cost-reducing (low-cost labor-seeking) investment and market-penetrating investment in the 1990s. On the other hand, Korean FDI behavior has gone through four different stages; from the learning stage with small investments in the 1970s, to natural resource-seeking investment in the early and mid 1980s, to the growth stage in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, to the maturity stage of the mid and late 1990s. The last two stages were characterized by a combination of cost-reducing investment and market-seeking investment. As a late comer, Korea began its FDI two decades later than Japan, but caught up the patterns of Japanese FDI by the mid 1990s and is in a competing position with Japan. Our findings show that both Japanese FDI and Korean FDI in Asia and other developing countries tendto be in labor-intensive sectors where their firms are losing their comparative advantages at home. The main motive for FDI into these regions is low-cost resource seeking. On the other hand, both Japanese FDI and Korean FDI in the U.S. and Europe tend to be knowledge-intensive sectors where Japanese and Korean firms attempt to internalize transaction and information costs by globalizing its production. The main motive for FDI into these regions is market-seeking. Firms in both countries have increased their investments in Mexico and Western and Eastern Europe in order to penetrate large economic blocs such as the EU and NAFTA area. Korean firms are more aggressive in expanding into new and untested markets than are their counterpart in Japan. Evidence of this can be seen in the scarcity of Japanese FDI and abundance of Korean FDI in Eastern Europe and China.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.41-60
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• 2010

After over a decade of sluggish economic growth accompanied by massive fiscal stimulus in the 1990s, it remains an open question whether and how Japanese firms have restructured their operations, and whether these efforts have borne any fruit. Using a randomly selected sample of 300 firms from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, we collect all restructuring announcement in the FY 2000-2001 (April 2000-March 2002) period. Our results are striking in that while we find that firms engaging in restructuring of various sorts display improved earnings in the period following the restructuring announcement, shareholders do not appear to benefit at the time of the restructuring announcements.