The rise of the Japanese multinational company (JMNC) marked, from the 1980s onwards, an historic change in the structure and in the dynamics of the international economy. For the first time, businesses from a non-Western nation established a competitive global presence, and they did so by bringing their advanced products and management systems to the developed economies of Europe and North America. In the last 30 years, our interpretations of JMNCs have undergone a series of revisions. Korean firms followed JMNCs in the 1990s and the Chinese likewise in the 2000s. A seeming decline in JMNC competitiveness and developments in the structure of the international economy challenged a business model of parental company direction, control and capabilities. Both trends asked questions about how Japanese subsidiaries should operate in global production chains increasingly reliant on contracting out and off-shoring, and how JMNCs might engage more in strategic cooperation and empower subsidiary decision-making. The contributors to this volume consider a wide range of relevant issues: they demonstrate the long-term evolution of JMNCs; they compare the experience of JMNCs with firms from the other two major Asia Pacific economies, Korea and China; they evaluate the applicability of established foreign direct investment (FDI) theory to MNCs from Japan and the Asia Pacific; and they reflect on the internal organization of JMNCs at the global, national and subnational level. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

This book offers a long-term comparative perspective on the evolution of Japanese and Asia Pacific multinational companies (MNCs), and provides new insights into how Japanese MNCs have transformed strategies and competitive capabilities in response to new challenges of the global market place since 1990. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

This book compares and contrasts leadership in Japan, South Korea and China, examining the impact of globalization on leadership styles and trends. Presenting some of the most recent findings in leadership studies in these three countries, the collection explores the power relationship between political and business leaders; employer-employee relationships and pro-social behaviour; the measurement of effective leadership; the relationship between leadership and corporate success; the survival of private firms in a tightly controlled or socialist market; and the evolution of leadership styles in the transition from state-owned to semi-private. Although many studies have offered explanations of East Asian economic and corporate success, this book presents empirical evidence to explain the leadership styles in Japan, South Korea and China, and provides a fresh outlook for those studying business and leadership in the region. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Business Review.

This collection explores the expansion of Japanese multinational firms into Asia, a process which paralleled the region's growth as a major economic region. The contributors discuss a wide range of topics, including the reasons for moving manufacturing to other countries, the flow of trade between Japan and these countries, technology transfer within firms, the impact of Japanese management practices in other Asian countries, and competition between Japanese and American firms in Asia.

Since the bursting of Japan’s bubble economy, from 1990 onwards, its multinational companies (MNCs) have faced new competitive challenges, and questions about the management practices on which they had built their initial success in global markets. Japanese engagement in the international economy has undergone a number of phases. Historically, Japanese MNCs learnt from foreign companies, frequently through strategic alliances. After the post-war ‘economic miracle’, Japanese manufacturers in particular converted themselves into MNCs, transferred their home-grown capabilities to overseas subsidiaries, and made an impact on the world economy. But the period after 1990 marked declining Japanese competitiveness, and asked questions about the ability of Japanese MNCs to be more responsive and global in their strategies, organization, and capabilities. It has been argued that the established management practices of Japanese MNCs inhibited adaptation to recent demands of global competition. This volume presents new case evidence on how Japanese MNCs have responded to the new challenges of the global market place, and it provides examples of how they have transformed strategies and competitive capabilities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

During the second half of the twentieth century, development in the Asia-Pacific region has been dominated by industrialization. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, services, in particular, finance, information and creative services, have become deeply embedded in the processes of urban growth. In Asia-Pacific the rise of service industries has lead to national modernization programmes and globalization strategies. Services are also driving change in the internal form of city regions and are being actively deployed as instruments of metropolitan reconfiguration and land use changes. These changes have created problems such as social polarization and the displacement of traditional industries and residential districts. Also, there are tensions between local and global processes in the development of service industries, and between the imperatives of competitive advantage and sustainable development. Service Industries and Asia Pacific Cities brings together a multi-disciplinary team of experts to explore and illustrate the theoretical, conceptual and practical issues arising from the transformation of Asia-Pacific cities by service industries.

This book examines regional dynamics in contemporary east and southeast Asia, scrutinizing the effects of Japanese dominance on the politics, economics, and cultures of the area. The contributors ask whether Japan has now attained, through sheer economic power and its political and cultural consequences, the predominance it once sought by overtly military means. The discussion is framed by the profound changes of the past decade. Since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, regional dynamics increasingly shape international and national developments. This volume places Japan's role in Asian regionalism in a broader comparative perspective with European regionalism and the role Germany plays. It assesses the competitive logics of continental and coastal primacy in China. In starkest form, the question addressed is whether Chinese or Japanese domination of the Asian region is more likely. Between a neo-mercantilist emphasis on the world's movement toward relatively closed regional blocs and an opposing liberal view that global markets are creating convergent pressures across all national boundaries and regional divides, this book takes a middle position. Asian regionalism is identified by two intersecting developments: Japanese economic penetration of Asian supplier networks through a system of production alliances, and the emergence of a pan-Pacific trading region that includes both Asia and North America. The contributors emphasize factors that are creating an Asia marked by multiple centers of influence, including China and the United States.

"This book is the result of a team effort that has brought together researchers from Europe, Japan and North America. Their backgrounds and experience reflect the interdisciplinary scope of the book, which covers economic, political and business aspects of service enterprises and cooperation in the Pacific-Asia region. The idea for this project originated with Gavin Boyd, who approached l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in 1990 in order to explore possible avenues of cooperation. HEC's Center for International Business Studies (CETAI), which has a long-standing interest in Asia, agreed to support the project, and the newly created Orner DeSerres Chair of Commerce, also at HEC, accepted to coordinate the project and to provide technical support. Gavin Boyd, Associate Member of CET AI, and Gunnar K. Sletmo, Orner DeSerres Professor of Commerce and Member of CETAI, agreed to serve as coeditors for the book."

Our understanding of management in Asia has not kept pace with the demands of managers and students. The Handbook of Asian Management provides in-depth critical reviews of central topics in strategy and organizational behavior research in Asian contexts. Leading scholars take stock of what has been learned and give clear directions towards greater rigor and relevance for research in this region.

This book provides a framework for considering the ramifications of Japan's expanding role and influence in the Asia-Pacific region. It documents Japan's emergence as the regional "core economy"; reviews the factor that may influence Tokyo's future political and military rule; poses alternative scenarios for the evolving Asia-Pacific economic, political and security order; analyses the factors and conditions that may determine which, if any, of those alternative scenarios might prevail; and considers the implications for future politico-economic relationships and the Asia-Pacific power balance.