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• Article | Journal of Financial Economics | March 2020

  Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior

  Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang

  After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid firms. We find that managers competed for inclusion in the index by significantly increasing ROE, and they did so at least in part due to their reputational or status concerns. The ROE increase was predominantly driven by improvements in margins, which were in turn partially driven by cutting R&D intensity. Our findings suggest that indexes can affect managerial behavior through reputational or status incentives.

  Keywords: JPX-Nikkei 400 index; Status incentives; return on equity; capital efficiency; Social Norms; Index inclusion; Reputation incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Behavior; Investment Return; Status and Position; Japan;

  Citation:

  Chattopadhyay, Akash, Matthew D. Shaffer, and Charles C.Y. Wang. "Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior." Journal of Financial Economics 135, no. 3 (March 2020): 704–724.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2015 (Revised February 2020)

  Managing Consumer Touchpoints at Nissan Japan

  Thales Teixeira, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

  In 2015, Nissan was third place in the Japanese auto market, behind Toyota and Honda. The challenge of increasing market share was that 80% of car shoppers who were non-Nissan owners did not consider Nissan during their purchase process. This process involved three main consumer touchpoints: mass media advertising, internet auto websites, and the physical dealerships. In the last five years, the importance of the dealers in influencing car sales had greatly diminished as consumers researched and chose which make and brand of car to buy online, going to the dealer only to negotiate price, purchase, and receive the car. Given this trend, how should Nissan's top marketer make changes in how Nissan manages these three key consumer touchpoints? And how to better integrate them to maximize sales.

  Keywords: Nissan; Automobiles; cars; touch points; digital marketing; Internet; Web Sites; Marketing Channels; Advertising; Auto Industry; Japan;

  Citation:

  Teixeira, Thales, Nobuo Sato, and Akiko Kanno. "Managing Consumer Touchpoints at Nissan Japan." Harvard Business School Case 516-035, September 2015. (Revised February 2020.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2019 (Revised February 2020)

  Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF's Embrace of ESG

  Rebecca Henderson, George Serafeim, Josh Lerner and Naoko Jinjo

  In the fall of 2018, Hiro Mizuno, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Fund, was reflecting on his efforts to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. His efforts ranged from constructing new stock market indices based on ESG data, changing the compensation and incentives of active investment managers and passive funds, pushing for more corporate sustainability reporting and integrated reporting, and establishing collaborations with other asset owners to drive systems level change. He was convinced that the only way to meet his responsibilities to his beneficiaries was to improve the performance of the entire economy through a focus on improving corporate governance, increasing inclusion in the workplace and gender diversity and reducing environmental damage and progress towards tackling climate change. The early results from his efforts were promising, but was there more he could do?

  Keywords: pension funds; ESG (environmental, social, governance) performance; Investment Funds; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Governance; Leading Change; Economy; Performance Improvement; Japan;

  Citation:

  Henderson, Rebecca, George Serafeim, Josh Lerner, and Naoko Jinjo. "Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF's Embrace of ESG." Harvard Business School Case 319-067, January 2019. (Revised February 2020.)  View Details

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