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I have had the honor of working directly with a few, and I think they bring something to the table that is badly lacking right now in this country.
It is a mean but common joke that “world’s strongest army would be run by American generals, German officers and Japanese soldiers.” For me, it really isn’t funny, because it points to a fundamental problem in this country that has been a constant – lack of competent high level leadership.
How can we connect non-financial capitals and corporate value? A new book, ‘Corporate Governance and Value Creation in Japan‘, which was launched in May 2018 as my first English book, provides a conceptual framework for integrating intangibles with ROE as well as empirical evidence and case studies supporting this model. (Here is the Japanese version of this book.)
Inconvenient truth: No meaningful value creation although Japanese companies tout ESG
In Japan, ESG and non-financial reporting are booming with 341 listed companies, according to KPMG, having adopted integrated reporting in 2017. Japanese corporate managers are traditionally inclined to tout their companies’ intangibles such as human resources and social contribution rather than financial metrics like ROE.
In recent years, however, Japan’s PBR (price-book value ratio: market capitalization to equity book value) has been stagnant and hovering around one without meaningful “market value added” (MVA, market cap above equity book value).