The Proactive Response to External Pressure?: Changes in Corporate Governance and the Significance of Auditing in Japan

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to show how Japanese companies are assimilating the Anglo-Saxon model of corporate governance, by focusing on the changes in accounting and auditing in post-war Japan. Design/methodology/approach-It delineates the three key stages in the process by which auditing was shaped in Japan: first, contextual analysis was conducted by means of the review of the existing empirical and theoretical literature on auditing, accounting regulation and corporate management; secondly, interviews were conducted with female and male auditors working in the Big Four auditing firms to explore the impact of the changes on the real-lives of accountants at the latter two stages. Findings-The study demonstrates that auditing is closely linked to the social structure and corporate governance and serves to reproduce the corporate underpinnings of stakeholder-orientated corporate governance in Japan. It also shows that in the current auditing context, where the movement is towards tighter control, female auditors tend to be awarded high evaluations. This tendency is undermining the underpinnings of stakeholder-orientated corporate governance. The study highlights changes in auditing are closely linked with the internal social processes through which diversity emerges and conflicts are resolved....