• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2022

Our study adds to the body of knowledge about the relationship between credit ratings and the capital structure of bond issuers. Using Bloomberg and Datastream databases and employing panel regression models, we study the capital structure changes of Japanese enterprises after credit rating changes by global rating agencies (S&P and Moody's) as well as their local counterparts (R&I and JCR) from 1998 to 2016. We find that after rating downgrades, Japanese enterprises considerably reduce net debt or net debt relative to net equity, similar to the findings of Kisgen (2009), who focused on U.S. industrial firms. They do not, however, make adjustments to their financial structure as a result of rating improvements. In comparison to downgrades by S&P and Moody's, Japanese corporations issue 1.89 percent less net debt and 1.50 percent less net debt relative to net equity after R&I and JCR rating downgrades. To put it another way, Japanese companies consider rating adjustments made by local agencies to be more significant than those made by global rating organizations. Our findings contradict earlier research that suggests S&P and Moody's are more prominent in the investment community than R&I and JCR in Japan.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.875-880
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• 2005

This paper represents a partial outcome of a doctoral research undertaken at the University of Tokyo, Japan. The doctoral research looked on the phenomenology of innovation and its implications for the construction industry in Japan. This paper focuses on the perception of innovation by major Japanese construction clients and major Japanese construction firms. Among construction researchers innovation is a popular topic and no conference will miss covering the issue. After a period of very critical judgment on the ability of the construction sector to innovate and partially even frustration on the inflexibility of the sector, a much more positive attitude was taken. At present, most construction researchers would agree that the construction sector clearly is very innovative. That stands in contrast with how construction practitioners perceive their own sector. This paper presents the results of and empirical research in how construction clients and contractors in Japan perceive the issue of innovation. In fact the perceptions differ largely and give interesting insights on particularities of the Japanese construction sector and on the mismatch of clients and contractors perceptions.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.23-30
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• 2013

Purpose - The study attempts to investigate the relationship between inventory management and firm performance using a multi-dimensional aspect of inventory management with respect to lean management practices across countries. Research design, data, and methodology - 1643 manufacturing firms from Japan and the US that SIC ranges from 2000 to 3999 were chosen to conduct the empirical test. This study employs hierarchical OLS regression analysis to examine the impact of control variables, ABI, EBI, and the interaction between ABI and EBI on firm performance. Results - The result indicates that in Japan high level of inventory negatively influences the accounting flows of business, while US manufactures exhibit strong positive impact of ELI on firm performance across accounting and market measures. The results show that the complementarity between the amount and the speed of inventory does exist. Except for Tobin's q, the sign of interaction term coefficient is negative, suggesting that when the amount of inventory increases and it stays longer in a firm, market values, ROS, and ROA suffers. Conclusions - The major finding of this study is that there exist some complementarities between the scope and implication of inventory management for lean strategy across countries, particularly in U.S. and Japanese firms.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.452-458
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze how managers' reporting choices affect asymmetric cost behaviors in manufacturing firms in Korea and Japan. In order to analyze the contents, SG&A, COGS, and operating expenses (OE), which were the targets of the previous studies, were analyzed using the operating costs paid in cash (OC) and the operating expenses before depreciation (OEBD) proposed by Shust and Weiss (2014). The differentiation of cost behavior was analyzed. The analysis revealed, first, that both Korea and Japan showed the difference between cost behavior of OE and OC. Specifically, the cost stickiness of OC was higher than that of OE. In particular, it showed that Korea firms have a higher intensity of tangible fixed assets that are weakening the cost stickiness compared to Japanese firms. Second, the occurrence of depreciation costs weakens the cost stickiness in both countries. Lastly, the higher the debt ratio, the more aggressively the cost reduction of Japanese companies. We hope that this study will help to improve the relationship between the two countries at the academic level when the Korea-Japan relationship cools down.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.9-18
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between conservative loan loss accounting practice of banks, defined as accounting behavior that increases loan loss allowances against expected credit losses, and bank lending. Furthermore, we specify the macroeconomic conditions reflecting debtors' borrowing environments and analyze how these conditions affect the relation between conservative loan loss allowances and bank lending. Although existing literature reports that accounting conservatism has a direct effect on non-financial firms' investment behavior, there is little evidence about an effect of conservatism on banks' lending behavior. By exploiting data showing the links between individual Japanese firms and their individual lenders to control both loan demand and supply, we estimate OLS regressions to test the relationships among conservative loan loss allowance, bank lending, and macroeconomic conditions using a unique dataset containing bank-firm-year observations between 2001 and 2013. We find banks that have conservative loan loss allowances tend to provide fewer loans to firms with financing needs when macroeconomic conditions are good and these conservative banks are likely to provide more loans to firms when macroeconomic conditions are bad. Our findings suggest that reflecting expected credit loss into loan loss allowances can mitigate the procyclical behavior of banks.

• Proceedings of the Technology Innovation Conference
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• 1997.07a
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• pp.224-243
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• 1997

The study examines the similarities of competitive strategy between fashion industry and high-tech industry through a case study of a Japanese maker. From the study, some implications are drawn for the Korean fashion industry. It is hoped that this, will help towards establishing a suitable competitive strategy for firms in this industry. In the fashion industry, the product life cycle is so short as to prompt a new product obsolete too quickly, and the extent of product differentiation is remarkably extensive compared to any other industry. Generally speaking, firms in this industry focus more of their resources on product development and marketing rattler than on production and they attempt to maneuver the speed when they are required to enhance their competitive edge. This is enabled through being, as one might expect, information- and technology- intensive as are high-tech industries. In this sense, that of the competitive strategy of a firm in fashion industry to be similar to high-tech industry. The Japanese firm Y has transformed itself a leading firm in fashion uniform segment. The firm could achieve this status by integrating each function needed for creating customer*s value, that is, product development, production and marketing within one Quick Response System. For this purpose, Y introduced a bundle of high-tech communication systems such as SPD, SDS, ATOM, NICS and so on. In this sense it can be said that Y was aware of what sort of competitive strategy was required in the industry. Implications for Korean firms is that, first, the magnitude of understanding the industry specific factors in establishing competitive strategy in the fashion industry, are speed, flexibility and systematic integration supported by high technology which are characteristic of high-tech industries. Secondly, as can be seen in the fact that Y emphasized logistics in its technological transformation, the significance of logistics control is a key to manipulating speed and flexibility in the industry. To sum up, those who have insight into above findings will be likely to keep their competitiveness in the industry not only in the Korean market but also in global market in the near future.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 2004

The purpose of this research is to study the effect of service qualify improvement strategy and its practices on firms' competitive advantage, and identify their influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty. According to this purpose. this paper hypothesized that high service qualify will satisfy customers' needs and result in improved customers' loyalty. Thus, empirical study was conducted to identify the relationships among factors which were identified through literature review. Data were collected from the customers of 3 luxurious japanese restaurants in Seoul. The result of data analyses shows (1) Serve quality factors such as customer service, qualify of meal, location and facility, and types of restaurants make significant difference among three restaurants in terms of customers' perception about service quality; (2) There is statistically significant difference among three restaurants in terms of customers' satisfaction, but there is no significant difference among them in terms of customers' loyalty; and (3) Not only the result from analysis on japanese restaurants inside hotels but also that on the independent japanese restaurant in Kangnam area, shows that service quality factors have significant effect on both customers' satisfaction and loyalty.

• Proceedings of the Korean Professional Engineer Association Conference
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• 1987.12a
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• pp.65-71
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• 1987

All Korean professional engineer′s great joy Is to welcome the Japanese professional engineers and relevant guests to the 1987 Japan-Korea Professional Engineers Joint Convention organized by the Korean Professional Engineers Association. As there exists an effort of blood, sweat and tear behind a succeeded theatrical stage, so an exquisite devotion with drawing up a master plan, investigation, supervision and etc by engineering firms is soaked through every part of huge construction projects and large unit factory buildings. It is over 14 years that the Engineering Service Promotion Law has been enacted by the Ministry of Science and Technology. In the meantime, the domestic engineering (engineering service) have reached a remarkable higher level while the number of engineering firms participating in overseas market has gradually been increasing. From a small scale of under water investigation to a large scale planning of atomic reactor or petrochemical plant, engineering service business can be said "The Software of Total Industry." Engineering service is what is called a higher business which offers specialized engineering know-how and experience. Engineering service compaines offer Its specialized knowledge and experience to government, industry and commerce. Whether the task is to modernize plant equipment, to design a building or to manage construction, an engineering company will develop and implement the most appropriate and cost effective solution. Clients use the engineering service of firm knowing that the engineer′s professional judgement is not influenced or biased by other commercial affiliations. While benefiting from the diverse experience that professional engineers can apply to a specific problem, government and industry also reduce the need for permanent in-house engineering staff. Engineering firms may be specialized or multi-disciplinary.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.221-263
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• 2009

This paper studies the behaviour of stock prices on the ex-dividend day in the Korean stock market. Since a majority of listed Korean firms are December firms whose fiscal year end in December and whose ex-dividend day falls on the same calendar day in the year, we use stock prices of Non-December firms to estimate the general stock price movements not related to cash dividends. We estimate excess returns on days around the ex-dividend day. Our major findings are (a) there is no tax clientele effect in Korea, (b) the opening price stock prices fell by the amount of the current cash dividend per share until 2001, but it does not fall as much as the current dividend per share since 2001. Furthermore, in contrast to the U.S. and the Japanese findings, (c) stocks earned negative excess returns on the ex-dividend day until 2001, after which all stocks are earning positive excess returns on the ex-dividend day, and (d) the closing stock price on the ex-dividend day that used to be even higher than the cum-dividend price until 2001 is lower than the opening stock price since 2001. The evidence suggests a structural break has happened around the year 2001.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.55-73
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• 2013

Since the 1990s, the Japanese government has made considerable attempts at stimulating innovation with an aim to pull the country out of a possibly permanent economic decline. Several laws and policy initiatives were introduced to encourage better interaction between universities (and research institutions) and industry. The results of these efforts have been mixed. While the number of university-industry joint and commissioned research has increased, revenues from the licensing of university-owned patents have fluctuated year by year. Although the number of startups and spin-offs from universities rose, their long-term survival and contribution to the economy remain uncertain. The Japanese experience features both strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include the long-term commitment of policy makers, the ability to set specific targets, and the active engagement of several key economic ministries. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of these policy initiatives was hampered by limitations within the policies concerning the roles of universities and their mode of interaction with industry based on intellectual property rights, the inadequacy of demand-side innovation policies, the fragmentation of bureaucracy, and a lack of a credible evaluation system.