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(öffnet in neuem Fenster)). 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/(öffnet in neuem Fenster)).
