Japanese Corporate Governance and Macroeconomic Problems

North American academics became interested in Japanese economic institutions in the 1980s, when rapidly growing Japanese firms were seizing significant shares of the global market (long dominated by established US and European firms) for cars, electronics, electrical and general machinery and precision instruments. Japan’s success seemed to many to have been achieved at the expense of declining US manufacturing industries. Thus, North American business schools taught Japanese practices in industrial relations (for example teamwork), manufacturing methods (JIT), industrial organization (keiretsu) and bank-based corporate control.