This exploratory article aims to preliminarily describe and analyze the spread of new coronavirus （COVID-19） infections and its impact on global and local supply chains in Japanese manufacturing industries and firms. Based on existing literature on industries, firms, and disasters, we characterize the 2019-2020 new coronavirus pandemics as “the first global and invisible disaster in the era of global competition,” in which risks of factory shut-downs caused directly or indirectly by infections can happen at any part of the global supply chains. This is also an invisible disaster that affects human productive resources, as opposed to visible disasters that destroy non-human physical productive resources. In the latter case, the organizational capabilities for quick recovery of damaged sites and rampup of substitutive production are key factors, while the protective capability for defending the factory and keeping it uninfected is critical in the latter case. We argue that the spread of the new coronavirus infections is a global disaster that broke out in the middle of intense global competition, so dynamic balance between supply chain competitiveness and robustness/resilience, including quick switching between a competition-focused mode and a disaster-focused mode, is crucial. In this situation, certain factories with higher levels of deep-level competitiveness and anti-disaster robustness, strengthened historically by intense competition and major disasters in the past, may take central roles in enhancing the competitiveness and robustness of a firm’s global supply chain as a whole. We also discuss the future possibilities for rebalancing the supply chains of Japanese firms in Asia with the help of a triangular model consisting of Japan, China, and ASEAN countries.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of foreign subsidiaries located in global cities from the perspectives of MNC’s investment purposes and the host country’s institutional environment. From the perspective of horizontal and vertical FDI, and the host country’s institutional environment, we argue that the relationship between investment purposes of foreign subsidiaries and their location in global cities varies with the economic freedom and social openness of the host country. Using data on the foreign subsidiaries of Japanese firms, we find the following trends. (1) Firms tend to choose global cities for the location of their foreign subsidiaries with horizontal FDI purposes. (2) This tendency is stronger when the host country’s economic freedom is lower. (3) Firms tend to choose locations other than global cities for their foreign subsidiaries with vertical FDI purposes. (4) This tendency is weaker when the host country’s social openness is lower. These results show that the importance of global cities in foreign markets for MNCs varies by investment purposes and country’s institutional environment.

This qualitative study investigated the nature of the culturally-based conflicts that occurred in an international joint venture (50-50) between a multinational American company and a large Japanese firm in the food industry, located in Tokyo, Japan during the period of 1973-2015. An in-depth interview methodology was used to collect information from six participants who were board members of the International Joint Venture (IJV), including its President and top executives, a director of corporate planning and an employee of the IJV union member. These participants were both from American and Japanese sides, and represented a variety of different functions. Cultural conflicts arising from differences in time and social orientations, and the cultural distance between typical business practices in the two parent companies and IJV (i.e., timeframe for profit or market share, different emphasis on brand-building or issues related to the local adaptation of products) are described. Strategies of corporate cultural reconstructions were adopted in order to minimize these conflicts. This study is of importance not only to enhance existing cultural theories such as Hofstede’ and Globe’s study (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) but also to stimulate positive theoretical extensions to draw implications to other emerging market for IJV in successful management.

There is a significant body of research on human resource management (HRM) in Japanese companies operating in China. Previous studies have highlighted that, compared to Western companies, Japanese companies have unique issues in HRM which affect the management of local subsidiaries. The main issues are that the HRM of Japanese companies is not suitable for the local environment in China and the development of local human resources is delayed.

However, there are few comprehensive case studies on micro-level HRM system, such as how Japanese companies locally responded its system and overcame issues.

This study focuses on the local responsiveness of the HRM system in Japanese companies. First, we present an analytical framework by extending the agency theory to the HRM system. Next, based on the case of changing the HRM system, we clarify the local responsiveness process of the system in Japanese companies and its management effect.