The Great East Japan Earthquake and its impact on German firms : an empirical study

Bibliographic Information

The Great East Japan Earthquake and its impact on German firms : an empirical study

Ralf Bebenroth

(SpringerBriefs in business)

Springer, 2014

Available at  / 10 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This publication sheds light on how Japan-based German firms dealt with the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in March 2011. To gather data, a questionnaire was developed and sent out in April 2012 to 244 German subsidiaries based in the Kanto area, mainly in Tokyo, with replies received from the top managers of 84 firms. In addition, the author conducted follow-up interviews with top managers of 14 of those firms in Tokyo to illuminate interesting aspects of the responses given in the questionnaires. It is shown that the overall impact on the performance of German firms was comparatively low. Those firms have now returned to normal operation and face relatively few disaster-related problems. However, firms with higher autonomy more frequently moved their offices either to the Kansai area, including Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, or at least temporarily closed down. In retrospect, the interviews made clear that relocating or suspending operations was a costly mistake. In contrast to transaction cost theory, which states that subsidiaries should be given high autonomy in such cases of emergency, it would have been better for the headquarters offices to have communicated more intensively with the management of their subsidiaries.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Disaster Impact 1 Introduction 2 Firm Level Impact (Why Focus Solely on German Firms? Questionnaire Based Research) 3 Economic Impact and Move (Temporary Closing or Relocation. Economic Impact. Autonomy and Leaving Japan?) 4 Situation of Non-Japanese Employees After the Disaster (Headquarter Sent Expatriates. Short-Term Visitors. Locally Hired Non-Japanese) 5 Results and Conclusion.- Chapter 2 Subsidiary Autonomy and Expatriate Retreat 1 Introduction 2 Theoretical Background. 3 Development of Hypotheses 4 Methods 5 Results 6 Discussion 7 Conclusion.- Chapter 3 Subsidiary Dependency on Expatriate Departure and Headquarter Trouble 1 Introduction 2 Theoretical Background 3 Development of Hypotheses 4 Methods 5 Results 6 Discussion 7 Conclusion.- Chapter 4: Closing Chapter.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Related Books: 1-1 of 1

Details

  • NCID
    BB13996955
  • ISBN
    • 9784431544500
  • Country Code
    ja
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Tokyo
  • Pages/Volumes
    x, 52 p.
  • Size
    24 cm
  • Parent Bibliography ID
Page Top