Recent studies on R&D activities have paid attention to inventors' networks and showed that their structural positions affected knowledge transfer within a firm. In our opinion, however, the prior studies have three important shortcomings. First, there are “providers” and “acquirers” in knowledge transfer. While providers refer to inventors who provide knowledge necessary to generate new knowledge, acquirers refer to inventors that acquire knowledge from others, combine their knowledge, and generate new knowledge. However, prior studies on providers are fewer and most focus on acquirers. We need to focus on not only acquirers but also providers to clarify the mechanisms of the innovation process. Second, although prior studies on acquirers have noted the importance of networks spanning structural holes in innovation, their effects are not consistent in prior studies on providers. Third, prior studies on providers did not consider the difference between intra-unit and inter-unit knowledge transfer. Recent studies have shown that the factors encouraging or discouraging knowledge transfer differ according to the two types of knowledge transfer. Thus, it follows that the effects of providers' networks on knowledge transfer vary accordingly.

 We consider the three problems of prior studies and examine how providers' intra-firm networks affect intra-unit and inter-unit knowledge transfer. For this empirical investigation, we collected and analyzed the affiliations and citations of inventors from a Japanese audio electronics firm. The results highlighted three points, as follows. First, knowledge of a provider spanning large structural holes is likely to be used by inventors in the same unit. Second, the centrality of a provider and intra-unit knowledge transfer have an inverse U-shaped relationship. Third, knowledge of a central provider is likely to be used by inventors in different units. These results imply that the effects of providers' networks depend on the channels of knowledge transfer.

 This paper derived a series of hypotheses from a review of previous research on business succession in organizations to investigate the factors that determine the success or failure of business succession in Japanese nonprofit organizations (NPOs). These hypotheses were tested using survey data. The analysis confirms the validity of the hypothetical framework for determining the success or failure of business succession in NPOs based on five key categories: (1) founder's syndrome, (2) upper echelon, or leader and Top Management Team (TMT) characteristics, (3) business succession planning, (4) governance, and (5) organizational characteristics. The validity of the hypothetical propositions was examined within each category, and the implications of the hypotheses were derived.

 The results of the analysis revealed the following. Firstly, the residual founder's influence negatively impacted the results of the succession. Secondly, the experience of governmental administrative management in the successor's career had a negative impact on the results of the succession. In addition, the diversity of the succession team members positively influenced the succession results. Thirdly, the functioning of the board of directors had a positive effect on the organization's results after the succession. Finally, the larger and the more specialized the organization, the greater was the positive effect on the succession results.

 This paper focuses on the characteristics of executive compensation committees in large German-listed companies. An executive compensation committee is a supervisory board committee in charge of executive compensation. This committee was recently adopted from the U.S., where it generally consists of independent members. However, as per the principles of the German supervisory boards, employees participate in the decision-making process. Every system needs coordination between its parts in order to function effectively as a whole. This paper examines the extent to which the German system affects the committee compositions.

 A study of 25 constituents of the Deutscher Aktienindex (DAX), a major German stock index, shows that all these samples, except for one sample without a codetermination system, include employee representatives in each executive compensation committee. In 20 constituents, employee and shareholder representatives share memberships equally. Thus, codetermination systems that have a long history in Germany considerably influence the memberships of executive compensation committees.

 A subsequent study of the membership profiles of these 20 companies shows that shareholder representatives are at a greater advantage than employee representatives in executive compensation committees. This shareholder ascendancy is based on the design of codetermination systems. In all cases, shareholder representatives are the committee chairmen, and 17 of them have the casting votes at committee meetings. In the three remaining cases, the chairmen of entire supervisory boards—who, by statutory authority, have the casting votes throughout the board meeting—are included in the executive compensation committees as members. Thus, codetermination systems significantly restrict the design of the executive compensation committees.

 Executive compensation committees have disintegrated, owing to the constraints of the longstanding traditional systems in Germany. Imported foreign systems need to change their modes of operation and design in a manner that is consistent with the structure of the import's destination.

 In the field of business ethics, “unethical behavior” by employees has received much attention. In the United States and Europe, empirical studies on clarifying the antecedents of unethical behavior began around 1970, and research is ongoing. In particular, Journal of Business Ethics has published five review articles every few years with the aim of contributing to the development of empirical unethical behavior research. However, in Japan, scarce empirical research on unethical behavior exists compared to other countries.

 Therefore, this study seeks to clarify the trends and issues in empirical unethical behavior research in the United States and Europe from 1970 to 2020 to encourage empirical research on unethical behavior in Japan. First, we organize five review articles on 393 empirical studies from 1970 to 2011 (Section 2). Next, we review 60 empirical studies (including 206 hypothesis tests) on unethical behavior from 2012 to 2020, and then compare pre-2011 and post-2012 studies for each factor (Section 3). Finally, we provide an overview of the trends and issues of these empirical studies (Section 4).

 We found that there were two trends: (1) transition from a “bad apples approach” to a “bad barrels approach,” and (2) developing original concepts in the business ethics field. Two issues emerged: (1) the need for verification of interaction or indirect effects, especially the combination of individual and organizational factors, or between organizational factors; and (2) the importance of examining the consistency between the validation results of empirical and theoretical research.

 Business creation through the founding of new firms can drive significant economic growth, just as business creation by established firms can. Hence, fostering startups is indispensable for economic development. In Japan, since the beginning of the 2010s, much attention has been paid to startups, and their business environment has changed dramatically. One of the most distinctive changes is the emergence of accelerators, which originated in the United States in the 2000s and support startups in multiple ways. In response to the growth of the practical interest in accelerators, academic research on this subject has been accumulating in recent years. However, prior research fails to find consistent results regarding how accelerators aid the growth of startups and how they influence startup performance. This inconsistency implies that different characteristics of accelerators may have different influences on startups; in fact, recent research suggests that accelerators are heterogeneous rather than homogeneous in various dimensions. In this article, we focus on accelerator experience as one such characteristic and examine its role in the growth of startups. Specifically, through an empirical analysis using data from 38 accelerators in Japan, we hypothesized and found that the effect of accelerator experience on the amount of funding raised by startups participating in the accelerator program in the year after the end of the demo day is positive only for early-stage startups that had not yet raised sufficient funds before participating in the program. This result implies that accelerator programs are not necessarily effective across all stages of startups because the programs may be specialized for specific stages. To the best of our knowledge, this article is the first study that systematically analyzes accelerator programs in Japan; it contributes to the literature by clarifying the role of accelerator experience in the development of startups.

 This study aims to examine the impact of prosocial motivation on knowledge sharing and hiding in organizations. In this study, the term prosocial motivation refers to the desire to expend effort to benefit others at work. Knowledge sharing means providing knowledge and information to others. Knowledge hiding, meanwhile, refers to an intentional attempt to withhold or conceal knowledge even when requested by others, and includes three dimensions: evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding.

 Knowledge sharing is a desirable behavior in organizations but could be challenging to promote. Because knowledge is one of the resources that can be used to gain competitive advantages, employees often face the dilemma of choosing between personal and collective interests. If they are prosocially motivated, they would be inclined to share their knowledge with others. However, prosocial motivation does not necessarily promote knowledge sharing. Previous research has indicated that employees hide their knowledge not only due to malintent but also for prosocial reasons.

 To examine how prosocial motivation affects knowledge sharing and hiding in the workplace, we focused on the regulatory forms of motivation, specifically the autonomous and controlled forms in the self-determination theory (SDT). According to SDT, autonomous motivation promotes knowledge sharing and reduces knowledge hiding. Meanwhile, controlled motivation promotes knowledge hiding. We developed hypotheses about the relationships between such two forms of prosocial motivation, and knowledge sharing and hiding, and analyzed the questionnaire survey responses of 761 full-time non-managerial employees in Japanese firms.

 The results indicated that autonomous prosocial motivation (APM) is positively related to knowledge sharing, and negatively related to knowledge hiding, except rationalized hiding. Furthermore, they showed that controlled prosocial motivation (CPM) is positively related to all dimensions of knowledge hiding. We also discussed the study's theoretical contributions and implications for future research.

 This study discusses the establishment of environmental assessment departments and the officials in charge of the same as one standard used by Japanese businesses to tackle environmental management. Establishing a full-time department with dedicated staff comes with a cost. Therefore, when evaluating the seriousness of a business toward environmental management, this is an appropriate consideration.

 Approximately 80% of companies in Japan have environmental management departments, of which only 45% are fully dedicated. This figure can be interpreted as implying that businesses are actively tackling environmental issues; however, very few companies hire dedicated staff to run these departments, and most officials in charge hold concurrent rather than dedicated positions. In this study, companies with dedicated departments and fully or partially dedicated staff are considered “proactive in environmental management,” a fact that is supported by their high rate of environmental indicator publications. The findings indicated that businesses with a fully-dedicated environmental department and staff had higher rates of environmental indicator publications. Conversely, those businesses that neither had a fully dedicated environmental department nor staff produced few or no publications.

 Furthermore, the findings indicated that companies that actively engaged in environmental management had more favorable financial data. The majority of financial data for companies considered in this study as being proactive concerning environmental management (i.e., those featuring a department and partially or fully dedicated staff members) differed significantly from the data from other business groups. These companies are improving environmental efficiency and making progress in terms of environmental measures.

 In terms of risk management, it was clear that environmental management by businesses in terms of EV (Enterprise Value), market capitalization, and sales may reduce future risks. The results demonstrated a fixed degree of reduction in indicators, such as return on assets and return on equity. This indicates that environmental management positively impacts business value in terms of risk management.

 This study carefully examines the real-world management situation to observe whether the cost of environmental measures corresponds to its business value (i.e., return). Managers must use decisive reasoning and consider environmental management from a long-term perspective. The current situation indicates that environment is a factor that business management cannot ignore. Therefore, environmental management contributes to a company's performance and business value.