The simple view of joint ventures and venture businesses is that both partners will cooperate to maximize their equity value. In reality, however, there is no guaranty that each partner always behaves to maximize the value of the equity, because partners may have conflicting interests. The...

It has long been said that the Japanese corporate governance does not pay sufficient attention to shareholders as the owners of the corporation. An yet, despite this seeming lack of shareholder ownership, Japanese firms have performed quite well until recently. This paper seeks to solve this...

We argue that the legal boundaries of the firm have more substantial effects on the Japanese multi-business organization than on its U.S. counterpart. The standard economic, management, or legal view is that distinguishing between an in-house division and a subsidiary, in particular, a wholly...

Joint ventures and venture companies present examples of the incomplete contract for economists and the relational contract for legal scholars. Although they have different practical settings, they share the issue of how parties manage the incentive for cooperation. The parties' ultimate goal is...

Corporate governance has been a hot issue across the world, especially since the Enron scandal and the Lehman shock. The Anglo-Saxon model (A-form), which focuses on monitoring management to maximize shareholder value through mechanisms such as hostile takeovers and independent directors, is...

In a family firm, the founding family has an influence over firm policy, corporate strategy, personnel issues, and so on, through ownership and participation in management even after the founder retires. Such family firms are prevalent among publicly traded firms not only in emerging countries,...

The monitoring model of the board of directors is influential worldwide despite being criticized from several perspectives. This article will examine the multi-dimensional roles—which include not only its monitoring role but also its role as a creator of synergistic effects—of the board from...

Long and specific Contracts in the US and short and ambiguous contracts in Japan are a stereotypical comparison of the contracting practices in both countries. Such characteristics of written contracts are understood as sticky. Based on a semi-structured interview of Japanese auto and...

It has long been said that the Japanese corporate governance does not pay sufficient attention to shareholders as the owners of the corporation. And yet, despite this seeming lack of shareholder ownership, Japanese firms have performed quite well until recently. This paper seeks to solve this...