Expatriate learning: exploring how Japanese managers adapt in the United States

We present an exploratory study of how Japanese expatriates adapt to working in the United States over time. We view expatriate adaptation to a host culture through the lens of Experiential Learning Theory and learning style. Results of two studies, using quantitative and qualitative data, conducted in Japanese multinational corporations doing business in the USA reveal how learning style in Japanese expatriates changes over time and how Japanese managers differ from their US counterparts. Results suggested that Japanese managers become more concrete and more active in their learning styles over time spent in the USA. Results also revealed that the learning style of expatriates changes in response to cultural demands and that the patterns of change do not necessarily reflect that of US managers. We suggest that Japanese managers do not directly assimilate into US culture but develop specialized modes of adaptation to their host culture. Results of the study are generalized into eight propositions to guide future research on expatriate adaptation to a host culture.     

Elderly empowerment,fertility, and public pensions

The economic role of elderly people is underestimated in the context of the debate on pension reforms. This is because, as healthy life expectancy increases, the elderly become more active not only in the labor market but also in household production. Using a three-period overlapping-generations model in which grandparents allocate time between labor and informal childcare (“grandparenting”), we analyze the interaction among grandparenting, fertility, elderly labor, and public pensions. We obtain two analytical results. First, increasing the pension contribution rate increases grandparenting. Second, elderly labor force participation rates are negatively (positively) related to the fertility rates among countries with small (large) public pensions. The nonlinear relationship between elderly labor and fertility is empirically supported.

     

Probability weighting and default risk: a possible explanation for distressed stock puzzles

This paper suggests incorporating investor probability weighting and the default risk of individual firms into a consumption-based asset pricing model. The extended model provides a unified explanation for several anomalous patterns observed in financial markets. The analysis addresses not only widely recognized asset pricing puzzles, such as the equity premium puzzle, but also less-studied anomalies on financially distressed stocks. The simulation, under which the model is calibrated according to U.S. historical data, shows that a combination of mild overweighting of probability on tail events and nonlinearity of equity values caused by default risk has the potential to resolve these patterns.     

A Cross‐National Study of Fairness in Asia: How Perceptions of a Lack‐of‐Group Bias and Transparency in the Performance Evaluation System Relate to Job Satisfaction

This study explored how managers’ fairness perceptions of performance evaluation systems differ across countries and relate to their job satisfaction. Lack‐of‐group bias and transparency were the constructs used to assess fairness perceptions. The data sample consisted of 903 Asian managers from the subsidiaries of a leading multinational corporation (MNC) strategically expanding its retail markets in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand. Results showed that the fairness perceptions of lack‐of‐group bias and transparency concerning the common performance evaluation system varied within these Asian countries. Furthermore, those fairness perceptions were significantly related to job satisfaction among Asian managers overall, as well as in each of the five geographical subgroups with the exception of Hong Kong, where the perception of a lack‐of‐group bias was only marginally related to job satisfaction. These findings offer theoretical implications regarding organizational justice, cross‐national management, and performance evaluation, as well as practical implications for leveraging organizational justice perceptions of performance evaluation systems for the effectiveness of MNCs. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The geographical dimension of global retailing

The globalization of twenty well-known retailers and fast food operators is measured by two geographical indices, dispersion and locus, based on various measures of activity. Both are compared with similar indices based on the GDP. An attempt to explain varying degrees of globalization with own manufacturing, store ownership and company age fails. This leads to increasingly ‘soft’ verbal, even personalized, explanations.     

Testing the incentive effects in tournaments with a superstar

This paper studies the effects of the levels and the structure of prizes on the efforts of agents with heterogeneous ability in a tournament model. In particular, we examine how the presence of a highly able agent affects the effort levels of other agents as well as the effects of the total and the marginal prizes. Using panel data from the Japan Golf Tour, we estimate the effects of the presence of a superstar, and the size of the total and marginal prizes on the scores of professional golfers. We find that the presence of a superstar adversely affects the scores of the other players; that the larger the size of the total prize, the better are the scores; and that the larger the marginal prizes that players face at the end of the third round, the better the scores they achieve in the final round.     

Incentives and Product Variety in an Aging Economy

This paper presents a new method to clarify intergenerational effects of the demographic change in industrialized countries, i.e., the trend of aging. Recognized effects of aging are twofold; a disincentive effect and a product variety effect. The results are consistent with the empirical findings in Cutler et al. (1990). With the evidence, our model predicts that diminished fertility represents a problem rather than an opportunity, and that diminished mortality represents an opportunity rather than a problem.     

Walras degrees and probability of a blocking coalition at pareto allocations

We attempt to determine the probability of a blocking coalition from a notion of being non- Walrasian which does not rely on the explicit use of norms. The key concept introduced is that of Walras degrees. Theorem 1 gives the bounds of the probability of blocking in terms of these degrees. Theorem 2 gives the asymptotic conditional probability of a blocking coalition given that coalitions are losing. The relationship between the degrees of the conventional norms on allocations is also investigated.     

Tariff Rate as a Public Good

If domestic firms lobby for protection, the tariff rate is a public good to all domestic firms, whether they engage in lobbying or not. This paper analyzes how the endogenous tariff rate as a public good depends on the group size in two‐stage lobbying models. The result depends not only on whether domestic firms lobby cooperatively or not, but also on whether domestic firms incur indirect lobbying costs or not. This paper shows that if free riding is not very serious and if the number of domestic firms is small compared to the number of foreign firms, entry of a domestic firm is likely to increase the equilibrium tariff rate.