WHOSE COMPANY IS IT - THE CONCEPT OF THE CORPORATION IN JAPAN AND THEWEST

This article examines the differences in the concept of the corporatio n and their possible implications for corporate performance, between J apan on the one hand and the United States and Europe (Germany, UK and France) on the other. The Japanese concept is used as the standard ag ainst which the other models are compared. The concept of the corporat ion is defined here as the answer to the question: 'In whose interest should the firm be managed?'(1) This is the foundation on which corpor ate governance and the monitoring system for the CEO is built. The ana lysis is focused on large publicly-held corporations with widely diffu sed ownership.