Entrepreneurial States: Reforming Corporate Governance in France, Japan, and Korea

In this close examination of corporate reform in Asia and Europe, Tiberghien (political science, U. of British Columbia) asks why (and when) governments get away with pursuing corporate restructuring reforms that promise little long-term but assure short-term costs. He notes that while corporation restructuring was clearly evident in the 1970s and 1990s, by the 1990s it came to represent something more than itself, including expressed the interactions of the state and private capital. He describes the new "political entrepreneur" of the era within the dilemma that became corporate restructuring, the means by which the relationship between private and public entities changed each other, and gives examples form France (in shameful reforms), Japan (in resistance) and Koreas (in systematic transformation). He closes with a case study from the automobile industry. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)