Professor Jaeho Yeom, president of the elite Korea University in Seoul and a Stanford Political Science PhD will examine the historical development, current changes, and future course of East Asian universities. Drawing on his own experience at Korea University, where his initiatives include the "pioneering intellectuals" program to encourage and support student creativity, President Yeom will examine many aspects of higher education, including shifts in educational methodologies, demographics, the pressures of globalization, and changes in government and private funding. 

Professor Jaeho Yeom earned a PhD in political science at Stanford University for his research on Japanese industrial policy for high technology. He has taught public administration at Korea University since 1990. He was Executive Vice President of Korea University before being appointed President in March 2015. President Yeom has also taught or conducted research in Japan, Australia, China, and the United Kingdom. He served as an expert member of the Korean Presidential Commission of Science and Technology Policy and a board member of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. He also served as president of The Korean Association for Policy Studies in 2007 and of The Korean Association for Contemporary Japanese Studies in 2008. Currently, he is chairperson of the Policy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, member of Public Service Evaluation Committee, and Editor in Chief of Asian Research Policy. President Yeom is the author of numerous books and studies, including Future Strategy for Test, Research, and Evaluation of Food and Drug (2011, NIFDS).

Image

Global Talent seeks to examine the utility of skilled foreigners beyond their human capital value by focusing on their social capital potential, especially their role as transnational bridges between host and home countries. Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University) and Joon Nak Choi (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) build on an emerging stream of research that conceptualizes global labor mobility as a positive-sum game in which countries and businesses benefit from building ties across geographic space, rather than the zero-sum game implied by the "global war for talent" and "brain drain" metaphors.

"Advanced economies like Korea face a growing mismatch between low birth rates and increasing demand for skilled labor. Shin and Choi use original, comprehensive data and a global outlook to provide careful, accessible and persuasive analysis. Their prescriptions for Korea and other economies challenged by high-level labor shortages will amply reward readers of this landmark study."  —Mark Granovetter, Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

The book empirically demonstrates its thesis by examination of the case of Korea: a state archetypical of those that have been embracing economic globalization while facing a demographic crisis—and one where the dominant narrative on the recruitment of skilled foreigners is largely negative. It reveals the unique benefits that foreign students and professionals can provide to Korea, by enhancing Korean firms' competitiveness in the global marketplace and by generating new jobs for Korean citizens rather than taking them away. As this research and its key findings are relevant to other advanced societies that seek to utilize skilled foreigners for economic development, the arguments made in this book offer insights that extend well beyond the Korean experience.

Books will be available for purchase at the event or  purchase online

Gi-Wook Shin is the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies; the founding director of the Korea Program; a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and a professor of sociology, all at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations.

Shin is the author/editor of more than a dozen books and numerous articles. His recent books include Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015), Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); Asia’s Middle Powers? (2013); Troubled Transition: North Korea's Politics, Economy, and External Relations (2013); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia (2006); and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many of them have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic journals including American Journal of Sociology, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, and Asian Survey. Shin is currently writing a book on historical memories of the Asia-Pacific wars with Daniel Sneider. 

Joon Nak Choi is an associate professor in the Department of Management at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Prior to joining HKUST, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He earned his Ph.D and M.A in Sociology at Stanford  University and his B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Brown University. His ongoing research continues to focus upon the effects of social and political capital, especially in Korea.

Hwy-Chang Moon joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for the 2015-2016 academic year. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Moon will be working on a research project titled, “The Global Strategy of Korean Firms in Silicon Valley.”

Moon received his PhD from the University of Washington and is currently a professor of international business strategy in the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University in South Korea, where he also served as the Dean. He has previously taught at the University of Washington, University of the Pacific, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Helsinki School of Economics, Keio University, and Hitotsubashi University. Moon has also consulted for several multinational companies, international organizations, and governments (e.g., Malaysia, Dubai, Azerbaijan, and the Guangdong Province of China).

Image

China’s Communist Party seized power in 1949 after a long period of guerrilla insurgency followed by full-scale war, but the Chinese revolution was just beginning. China Under Mao narrates the rise and fall of the Maoist revolutionary state from 1949 to 1976—an epoch of startling accomplishments and disastrous failures, steered by many forces but dominated above all by Mao Zedong.

Mao’s China, Andrew Walder argues, was defined by two distinctive institutions established during the first decade of Communist Party rule: a Party apparatus that exercised firm (sometimes harsh) discipline over its members and cadres; and a socialist economy modeled after the Soviet Union. Although a large national bureaucracy had oversight of this authoritarian system, Mao intervened strongly at every turn. The doctrines and political organization that produced Mao’s greatest achievements—victory in the civil war, the creation of China’s first unified modern state, a historic transformation of urban and rural life—also generated his worst failures: the industrial depression and rural famine of the Great Leap Forward and the violent destruction and stagnation of the Cultural Revolution.

Misdiagnosing China’s problems as capitalist restoration and prescribing continuing class struggle against imaginary enemies as the solution, Mao ruined much of what he had built and created no viable alternative. At the time of his death, he left China backward and deeply divided.

Books will be available for purchase at the event

Andrew G. Walder, Author, has long specialized on the sources of conflict, stability, and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His publications on China have ranged from the political and economic organization of the Mao era to changing patterns of stratification, social mobility, and political conflict in the post-Mao era. Another focus of his research has been on the political economy of Soviet-type economies and their subsequent reform and restructuring. His current research focuses on popular political mobilization in late-1960s China and the subsequent collapse and rebuilding of the Chinese party-state.

Walder joined the Stanford faculty the fall of 1997. He received his PhD in sociology at the University of Michigan in 1981 and taught at Columbia University before moving to Harvard in 1987. As a professor of sociology, he served as chair of Harvard's MA Program on Regional Studies-East Asia for several years. From 1995 to 1997, he headed the Division of Social Sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. From 1996 to 2006, as a member of the Hong Kong Government's Research Grants Council, he chaired its Panel on the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Business Studies.

Thomas P. Bernstein, Discussant, earned his PhD from Columbia University, 1970. He joined the faculty of the Department of Political Science and of the East Asian Institute in 1975, having previously taught at Yale and Indiana Universities. He retired in December 2007.  He is a specialist on comparative politics, with a focus on China as well as on communist systems generally. He has written on the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union and China and on the two famines that each country experienced in the l930's and late l950's. Publications on China include a book on Chinese youth (Yale University Press, 1977), which was translated into China in 1993, as well as articles and  book chapters on the Mao era, China’s growth without political liberalization, prospects for democratization, and on education. His recent writings have focused on various aspects of state-peasant relations in China’s reform period. Together with Professor Xiaobo Lu, he co-authored Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China (Cambridge University Press, 2003). In recent years, he has resumed work on Sino-Soviet relations and comparisons. In 2010, he published a co-edited book with Hua-yu Li, China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949-Present (Lexington Book). And he has written on reform and authoritarian rule in contemporary China and Russia. Prior to retirement, he served on various editorial boards, including Comparative Politics and China Quarterly.  He has held various fellowships, including a Guggenheim. He served as Chair of the Department of Political Science from 1986-l989 and again from 1991 to l994.

Abstract:

Enhancing corporate governance has been an emphasis in Abenomics economic reform.  The Stewardship Code established in 2014 has defined principles that institutional investors should follow to enhance the long-term investment return for their beneficiaries.  The institutional investors are now expected to engage "constructively" with the investee companies to increase the corporate value, including discussion on corporate governance changes.  Another related development in 2014 was the introduction of JPX Nikkei Index 400, which is a new stock price index calculated from the stock prices of 400 companies with "high appeal to investors."  Following this, many Japanese companies started to improve their corporate governance and accounting practices to increase their chances to be among the 400 companies.  Now Corporate Governance Code, which defines principles for effective corporate governance, is being developed, adding another impetus for Japanese companies to change.  We invite two business leaders in Japan who have been leading the change.  Kazuhiko Toyama was a member of the committee that drafted the Corporate Governance Code.  Masaaki Tanaka has been pushing the corporate governance reform at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the largest financial institution in Japan.

Speaker Bios:

Image

Takeo Hoshi is Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (S-APARC), all at Stanford University. Hoshi is also Visiting Scholar at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), and Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). His main research interest includes corporate finance, banking, monetary policy and the Japanese economy. He received 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize of Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha, and 2005 Japan Economic Association Nakahara Prize. His book Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future co-authored with Anil Kashyap received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books in 2002. B.A., University of Tokyo (1983). Ph.D. (Economics), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988).

Image

Masaaki (Masa) Tanaka is Representative Director and Deputy President of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG), the largest financial group in Japan.  He assumed this position in 2012 after serving as CEO for the Americas for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, (BTMU), one of the wholly owned subsidiaries and the principal revenue-generating entity of MUFG from 2010 to 2012, and President and CEO of Union Bank, BTMU’s West Coast subsidiary, from 2007 to 2010.  Mr. Tanaka also serves on the Board of Morgan Stanley since 2011, and currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Councilors of the U.S. Japan Council. In Mr. Tanaka’s current assignment, he directly reports to CEO with general responsibility to oversee all business groups of MUFG, including overseas business.  His responsibility also includes oversight over corporate functions, including corporate governance, strategic and financial planning, and enterprise risk management.  He oversees highly complex business operation with global reach and is responsible for ensuring compliance with all regulatory requirements.  Mr. Tanaka holds a law degree from the University of Tokyo and a Master of Laws Degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

Image

Kazuhiko Toyama is CEO of Industrial Growth Platform, Inc.  He has started his career with BCG and later became one of the founding members of Corporate Directions, Inc. (CDI), a Tokyo-based independent management consulting firm, eventually becoming its CEO. In 2003, he was appointed to lead Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ), a government-backed restructuring fund, as COO. In 2007, when IRCJ was dissolved, he founded Industrial Growth Platform, Inc. (IGPI), which he currently runs as its CEO. He graduated from Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo and holds an MBA from Stanford University. He has passed the Japanese National Bar Examination. 
Vice Chairperson of KEIZAI DOYUKAI (Japan Association of Corporate Executives), Expert member of Council on Economic Fiscal Policy (MOF), Member of The Tax Commission (CAO), Member of Committee for National University Corporation Evaluation, Department of Innovation Program (MEXT), Member of the Council of Experts Concerning the Corporate Governance Code (FSA), Outside director of OMRON Corporation and Pia Corporation.