Understanding institutional change in Asia: a comparative perspective with Europe

Project Information

INCAS

Grant agreement ID: 645763

DOI

10.3030/645763

Project closed

EC signature date 4 December 2014

Start date 1 June 2015

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 778 500,00

EU contribution

€ 778 500,00

Coordinated by

ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INCAS (Understanding institutional change in Asia: a comparative perspective with Europe)

Reporting period: 2017-06-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The joint interdisciplinary research programme promoted engagements through collaborations with scholars from various academic disciplines, including finance, social science, political economy and economic history, in which the scholars were able to advance their understanding of the process of institutional change in a comparative context.

First, the project provided a unique opportunity for European and Japanese scholars to support creativeness in interdisciplinary research and to support collaborations through conference seminars and workshops. The project members were able to engage with the non-academic community to promote and strengthen the understandings of the institutional frameworks, organisation dynamics and corporate governance practice in Japan and its comparisons to the member states of the European Union. The project members were able to translate complex research to non-academic audiences through engagement in conferences and to communicate via a social media and print newspapers such as Le Monde, Nikkei, the New York Times, Japan Times, and Agence France-Presse.

For example, our project members were able to share their knowledge with non-project members relating to the issue of the labour productivity differential in the automobile industry between Japan and EU countries. For example, our project members provided an in-depth analysis in Le Monde relating to the Renault-Nissan corporate scandal (http://ffj.ehess.fr/medias.html). Our Waseda University members are a part of two study groups at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) – the Corporate Governance System Study Group and the Study Group for Japanese Companies’ M&A Overseas – which share their research findings and contribute to the policy-making processes.

Second, the project offered a broad range of programmes to promote academic engagements, knowledge transfer, career development, and complementary skills training. Throughout the project, most of our junior members visited our Japanese partner, Waseda University, for their secondment, during which they were able to take part in the conferences and seminars which were held at the university and other parts of Japan. They also engaged in collaborative research activities and conducted their own field research. In particular, our junior European members were able to engage with members of Waseda University, and developed perspectives on other disciplines relating to the topics of Asian capitalism, corporate governance, institutional theories, and organisational dynamics. More importantly, our junior members were able to acquire skills and experiences, which enabled them to give their presentations in Japanese and English, allowing them to engage in academic and non-academic discussions effectively. Overall, the project offered unique opportunities to enhance cross-cultural understandings in developing research in an international context.

The project undoubtedly improved the employability of the junior members in what is a highly competitive job market, which also provided opportunities to academic members to extensively network with non-members and non- academics outside the project. At least eight of the junior project members were able to find jobs shortly after the completion of their Ph.D. programmes.

Third, the project aimed to advance the development of approaches applied to interdisciplinary research, which attempted to develop in-depth understandings by providing analyses in multiple dimensions. These included: (i) the historical understandings of institutional changes in Asia that have impacted on growth and development; (ii) the relationship between (financial) liberalisation and corporate diversity; (iii) the interaction between political economy and corporate strategies, and (iv) constructing socio-economic and legal variables. In addition, it overcame the data limitations by creating new databases by (a) matching existing company-level databases, and (b) matching databases with data collected by conducting qualitative research and developed a historical database consisting of companies using the framework of the Historical High-Quality Firm Data For Europe (EURHISFIRM) programme (https://dfih.fr/).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The framework of this programme offered extensive insights on corporate diversity, financialisation and state capabilities, and on reforms and the (non-) convergence of economic systems. During the programme, institutional participants and members (i) promoted cross-border collaboration and training to the junior members in four formal conferences and numerous informal seminars organised by members, and (ii) published 25 discussion papers, nine of which were accepted for publication in scientific reviews and journals, and (iii) supervised 12 Ph.D. candidates, and five of them have completed their Ph.D. programmes.

The discussion papers and the information on the project’s activities were disseminated via academic conferences, the project’s social media platforms, and the websites of universities. These websites are:
• https://incas.hypotheses.org/
• https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/active-research-projects
• https://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/fachbereich/bwl/management/jackson/news/16_09_26_INCAS_conference.html
• https://mailchi.mp/41e0ec260fd5/fondation-france-japon-de-lehess-newsletter-november-524831

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results of the project offered three dimensions in understanding the process of institutional change in a comparative context: (i) WP 2 shows that scholars should go beyond their studies of broad structural views of institutional change in relation to organisational diversity. This is because diversity among companies is important, both as a driver of change and as the assessment of the aftereffects; suggesting that a longitudinal and comparative element of research methodology should be used in examining the longitudinal effects. (ii) WP4 concludes that market-oriented reforms are likely to have had positive effects on competition, decreasing prices and rents in Japan, South Korea, and Europe in the past three decades, but suggests that the reforms and exogenous pressures (from foreign institutional investors) have not led to economic systems converging. WP4 indicates that the reforms and exogenous pressures are likely to create asymmetries of economic/trade partnerships, which may become impediments to further developments of economic relations. (iii) WP5 finds conclusive empirical evidence on the causes and the effects of globalisation and liberalisation. WP5 offers two insights into the current debates focusing on globalisation, liberalisation, institutional change and technological advancement. First, empirical evidence from Japan and South Korea suggests that globalisation and liberalisation are the main drivers of corporate heterogeneity, and technological advancement has only played a minor role in corporate heterogeneity. Second, the findings of the Japanese case study indicate that the contributions of large domestic multinational companies to the domestic economy were limited.