The increased globalization of production processes and the integration of the world's financial markets have placed considerable pressures on companies to reevaluate their governance structures. These structures, which vary from country to country, affect everything from financial fluidity and competitiveness to rules on insider trading, takeover, and accounting and disclosure practices. Should a single model of corporate governance be adopted as a world standard?

In this book, part of the Integrating National Economies series, Mitsuhiro Fukao argues against the impulse to adopt a single system of corporate governance. He provides a comprehensive comparison of corporate governance structures in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, outlining the advantages of each type of structure and analyzing the important behavioral differences among them.

He explains the order of importance of various stakeholders - creditors, top executives, core employees, and shareholders - the cost of capital, and the use of labor in each country.

Given the different advantages of the various systems and their deeply rooted institutional backgrounds, Fukao contends that it is neither desirable nor feasible to adopt a single model of governance as the world standard. Instead, each country should allow various complementary forms of governance in order to create healthy competition among companies and more efficient corporate structures.