The aims of this paper are to investigate 1) how much gender gap in promotion has narrowed since 2000 through 2008 in Japan, and 2) how big such gender gap in Japan is compared with that in US and Korea. The result from a regression analysis shows that, all other things being equal, the gender gap in promotion has slightly narrowed over 8 years in Japan; however, the gap in Japan is much bigger than that in Korea, not to mention that in US. In US, women tend to get promoted to a manager position more easily than men, but with statistical insignificance. In Korea, women tend to get promoted less easily than men, but with statistical insignificance. Only in Japan, women tend to get promoted a lot less easily than men with statistical significance.

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With the development of information technology, the term "gatekeepers" has been frequently used in many areas of the society, for example, a financial gatekeeper or a gatekeeper of a website. In the light of these circumstances, the purpose of this paper is mainly to discuss the negative aspects of the diversity of gatekeepers in the society. In particular, this paper should point out that each negative aspect of gatekeeper has mutual interaction (mutual compilation and editing processes), and discuss why the negative effects of information sharing prevail across the society.

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In 1994, Donaldson and Dunfee proposed the Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT), with the aim of solving conflicts of norms often seen in the business context. But many business ethicists have pointed out that the ISCT is not easily applicable, because the concept of hypernorms is not clear. With such a point in mind, this article tries to reevaluate one of the very important contributions they made. That is an attempt to introduce the rules of thumb for prioritization. For this purpose, first I overview the theoretical framework of the ISCT. Second, I highlight their way to prioritize relevant norms, even if those norms are complicated or mutually exclusive. They call this way "the six sample rules of thumb." Since they have not developed the rules further, there remain some issues. Therefore at the end of this article, I explore a direction, so as to solve the issues.

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The establishment of Executive Officers began at Sony in 1997 in Japan; they have rapidly spread among other companies, and now they have been introduced into more than half of the listed companies. The intended roles of Executive Officers are to manage business more effectively and independently from Directors. However, detailed analyses of the related law and practice regarding Executive Officers reveal that they hardly contribute to the reinforcement of corporate governance. Executive Officers are still just 'servants' under the current business law, because the law does not give them genuine authority. Moreover, in many cases, the Directors also serve concurrently as Executive Officers, which means that the duties of Executive Officers are directly influenced by the Directors or the Board of Directors. This raises doubts about the independence of execution of business from decision-making and supervision of business - the original justification for the establishment of Executive Officers.

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Internal Control Report System (ICRS) was introduced in April, 2008 against the background of the injustice which shakes the reliability of financial reporting having been revealed successively. ICRS requires management to assess the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting as of the company's fiscal year-end, and requires the companies to produce "Internal Control Reports" each year. The purpose of this paper is to examine the subject of an ICRS focusing on corporate disclosure according to the following procedure. First, I provide a brief overview of ICRS. Second, I conduct the present data analysis of corporate disclosure based on the already submitted "Internal Control Reports". Finally, I clarify the problems of the corporate disclosure in ICRS.

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Most corporations in Japan have already implemented ethics programs, including compliance, internal control, and CSR. However, in reviewing a number of the corporate "scandals" that have occurred in recent years, we found that "Legal Compliance" did not necessarily translate into "Executive Discipline". In this article, I review the current status of "Legal Compliance" type programs and demonstrate that they are insufficient to the task of governing executive actions. Then, I make two recommendations that I believe are essential to the implementation of a comprehensive and integrated business ethics. First is the construction of an "Integrated Ethics" of "Shared Values" that incorporates "Executive Discipline" and that is based on "Management Principles", such as "Corporate Mission" and "Corporate Values". Second is the construction of new approaches to corporate governance that include personnel training and selection processes conducive to the appointment of "Executives with Integrity", and that, in this age of globalization, advocate "Global Integrity of Management" through the shaering of "Values" with all stakeholders.

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This paper considers the factor which demands CSR behavior from employees. It is examined from a viewpoint of the CSR communication with a company and an employee based on the theory about the procedural fairness in an organization. In order to verify the influence of "Voice", the questionnaire was performed to employees belonging to the company which is performing CSR activity. In this paper, "Voice" means the opportunity for employees to express an opinion about CSR activity to a company. As a result, "Voice" raised employees' CSR behavior, the reliance for their company, and an understanding of CSR activity of their company.

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The positive effects linking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to Corporate Reputation have been suggested in many studies. In this paper, the concept of Corporate Reputation is interpreted from a different viewpoint, and the relationship between CSR and Corporate Reputation is analyzed. Additionally, the moderating effects on said Corporate Reputation by the quality of information pertaining to CSR on a Corporation's Website are also examined. Results indicate that while CSR positively affected Corporate Reputation, and Corporate Governance was also particularly important, the quality of basic information pertaining to CSR on a Corporation's Website appeared to be the determinant factor affecting Corporate Reputation in relation to CSR.

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The study shows that Universal CSR Activities are the corporate activities which bring private benefit in line with public benefit without premising the action of the market mechanism. The study checks that Universal CSR Activities are effective in contributing to the guarantee of companies' sustainability, and aims to examine the concrete management. Therefore, the study defines the companies which have been successful for a long time and understand the importance of CSR activities as the "best practices" companies, and it also defines the Universal CSR Activities leaning on the main business as MB-CSR activities. Then, the study formed the supposition that, in the "best practices" companies, MB-CSR activities are at least effective in the maintenance and improvement of their employees' motivation, and then confirmed the supposition through case studies. In the process of the validation, the study has examined that four kinds of concrete management are necessary.

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Authors have made an educational program aiming to reduce medical accidents in hospitals. The new program consists in watching a video/DVD in which the parents of a child victim of a medical accident talk of their experience and feeling about the accident, and in discussing about the Video/DVD. This paper aims to show the positive effects of the educational program and also claims that the positive effects of our program largely comes from the discussion after watching the video about how they should attend to their patients among nurses and medical doctors. In other words, collective dialogues about the ethical matter should play a great role in the improvement of the ethical consciousness in an organization. Especially, the result of the program held among the inexperienced nurses is more influenced by the group discussion than the personal beforehand belief about the ethical matter in their works.

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This is an action research, which aims to enable undergraduate students to construct their own ethical mind through an education of engineering ethics. On the assumption that the social psychology theories of 'role-taking' and 'attitude change' derive effective basis to practice such education programs, the study designs a syllabus of the class and a series of short essay questions to exercise cognitive abilities concerned with ethical practices. Findings from qualitative data analysis of descriptive texts by students show this framework succeeds in providing effective training opportunities, in which students try to learn how to construct social attitude for ethical decision making within difficult and complex situation overcoming conflict between opposing factors such as individual and organizational value.

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This study adopts management philosophy of Akio Morita between 1959 and 1980 when he was one of the representative directors at Sony Corporation. This study intends to clarify how the management principles composed of competitiveness, efficiency, humanity and sociality are logically combined in his management philosophy. Through the analysis, it was verified firstly that he consistently had his priority over competitiveness or efficiency rather than humanity in order to produce profit for Sony's American shareholders. Secondly, it was verified that he intended humanity supports to strengthen competitiveness so that employee oriented "familism" and shareholder oriented "meritocracy" are co-existed in his management philosophy. Thirdly, it was verified that Morita in 1970s also attached importance to steady management which appeared as his avoidance to bear the risk of large investment upon new business development. It was owing to the influence of his father's conservative character who educated him as an enterpriser.

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There is an asymmetry of information between the seller and the buyer. It is necessary to dissolve asymmetry by providing accurate information to the buyer. Customer satisfaction depends on the gap between the customer expectations and the perceived quality and value. If the expectation is too high, customer satisfaction will be small, since the gap will not be ameliorated, even though a product is good. The auto manufacturer and dealers provide their customers with information through exhibitions, advertisements, brochures, etc. But the reliable information about the dealt price is hidden from the buyers as the private information of the sellers. A Japanese Auto Manufacturer in Canada endeavored to provide it on internet. This was successful regarding sales and customer satisfaction. The endeavor, however, had to be given up due to instances of wrong sales practice. I would like to discuss the asymmetry of information and resale price maintenance, considering this case.

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This paper builds on the methodology of CMS(critical management studies), while using the analytical framework of H.A.Simon's modern organization theory. It specifically investigates the case of crush accident on the pedestrian bridge at the fireworks event in Akashi City 2001 on secondary materials such as news articles about judgments in the court. It analyses how various organizations like the city administrators, police and security company were related to cross-organizational decision-making on restricting/unrestricting flows of pedestrians to avoid the accident. A structural gap of responsibility in organizational decision-making process can be reviled as well as systematic oppression that modern organizations inevitably include, such as inhibition of the autonomous decisions of individuals, which 'value-neutral' management theory could not make explicit.

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In the 21^<st> century, waste recycling companies that environment-related industry is required an ethics program. In Hokkaido, Hokusei Kigyou adopted corporate ethics program based on its philosophy, "environment friendly." In addition, Hokusei Kigyou developed new recycled products "Line Powder (Eco Plaster Line)" in partnership with Nihon Rikagaku Industry, and "Arsenic Immobilizer" in partnership with ES General Laboratory. Hokusei Kigyou was successful in developing new recycled products through its ethics active. On the other hand, in Okinawa, Okisei Sangyou adopted corporate ethics program based on its philosophy, "environment friendly." But now Okisei Sangyou is looking for partners that espouse its philosophy, "environment friendly." In the near future, Okisei Sangyou will develop new recycled product in partnership. Therefore, in this paper, the authors clarify that waste recycling companies that adopts an ethics program can create corporate network, and then, they develop new recycled products in partnership.

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The misleading disclosure scam in which the paper industry lied about the recycled paper contents of their products, discovered in 2008, showed us that the internal control systems and the regulation and corporate ethics of these companies didn't work no matter how sophisticated their structures. Here we investigate from two aspects, asymmetric availability of information and corporate compliance, using the examples of Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. and Oji Paper Co., Ltd. Also I looked at the current conditions and problems of moral management of Japanese companies through the lens of this misleading disclosure scam.

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This report addresses the noncompliance with Organic JAS Standards and Technical Criteria and analyzes the issue from the perspective of business ethics. Noncompliance cases are classified into the following three types: (1) false labeling of JAS standards for organic vegetables by making and using forged seals, (2) use of materials that do not comply with the standards, and (3) flaws in the authentication procedures for JAS standards governing organic vegetables. The following facts are apparent: the excessive seeking of economic profit is a social factor that promotes noncompliance, the complex system of proving that noncompliant materials were not used can lead to noncompliance, and some noncompliance can be avoided by combining social morality and management ability. The noncompliance is not similar but is caused by different business ethics issues. Therefore, an individualized approach according to each case and social support, such as public training programs, are required to reduce noncompliance.

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This paper studies risk knowledge and risk knowledge creation. In modern times, a company's survival is threatened by various types of accidents. Under these circumstances, it is required to not only confirm existing risk knowledge but also renew and create it. Although researchers have analyzed risk in creating knowledge and risk knowledge, little is known about creating risk knowledge. In the theoretical analysis in the first half of the paper, the definitions of some concepts and a knowledge creating theory are reviewed. Furthermore, a framework based on these concepts and theory is presented. In the second half of the paper, a case study is used to show the factors essential for effective creation of risk knowledge, for example, the disadvantages of an overemphasis on tacit knowledge of risk and the need for leadership to facilitate people to discuss risks.

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This paper discusses the role of information sharing in "environment-oriented behaviors" from the perspective of "low-entropy sources". It focuses on "dual information sharing" (Murayama and Yamashita, 2011) as a "low-entropy source" in closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) and proposes a "low-entropy framework of environment-oriented behaviors". The proposed framework suggests the need for information sharing not only among members from the traditional supply chain but also with consumers in order to solve the global environmental problems.

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'Sanpo-yoshi (three parties good)', which means 'good for the seller, good for the buyer, good for the society', is usually regarded as the word which expresses the management philosophy of Omi merchants. In this paper, I revealed that it was not historic word and the first use of the word could be found in the moral theory of Dr. Chikuro Hiroike. He claimed that we should give sufficient moral considerations to the interests of the third parties, as well as of one's own and of the partner. This concept can be interpreted as a Japanese style stakeholder approach.

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