Category: Other News

Working paper by David F. Larcker and Anastasia A Zakolyukina at Stanford:We find that answers of deceptive executives have more references to general knowledge, fewer non-extreme positive emotions, and fewer references to shareholders value and value creation. In addition, deceptive CEOs use signicantly fewer self-references, more third person plural and impersonal pronouns, more extreme positive emotions, fewer extreme negative emotions, and fewer certainty and hesitation words.

ISS has published a collection of essays entitled 25 for 25: Observations on the Past, Present, and Future of Corporate Governance In Celebration of ISS’ 25th Anniversary. The publication is here:

http://issgovernance.com/files/ISS_25for25.pdf

As we consider the design ofBDTI's group learning courses for training directors and executives in Japan, I have been reading various books on the influence of language and culture on fundamental thought processes. I am particularly interested in the studies described in The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently… And Why(Free Press, 2003), a book by Professor Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan.

Entitled Charting a New Course for Growth: Recommendations for Japan's leaders, the report has an intriguing manga cover and is based on replete economic analysis. The White Paper and related materials can be downloaded at: http://www.accj.or.jp/gstf.

The well known and well-attendedTBLI Conference will be held on the 11th and 12th of November in London. http://www.tbliconference.com/ This will be the 12th TBLI Conference so far.

BDTIhas conducted a survey on attitudes towards corporate governance in Japan. A summary of the findings is available at http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/c1hal6ep

Among the most interesting results were:

CLSA and the Asian Corporate Governance Association have published their 2010 version of CG Watch Asia. Japan's score moved up a to 57%, a level that however is still 23 percentage points below what ACGA considers to be the global best-practice score of 80%.The Japan section of the report is available on BDTI' data library. The full report can be purchased from ACGA.

The Nikkei reported that the TSE will soon invite independent directors to a seminar. …TSE is taking this unusual step because it believes that some firms still lack a full understanding of how independent directors and auditors should exercisse their oversight of management on shareholders' behalf.

The seminar will be open to about 1,500 people, and will feature speeches by officials who were involved in the introduction of the TSE requirement.

BDTI is now conducting a survey to compare attitudes of the Japanese populace towards corporate governance (in Japan) with the opinions of foreign persons from different countries.Respondents canreceive a summary of the final survey results byemailing htaniguchi@bdti.or.jp .

Robeco has published its Q2 2010 Responsible Investing Report, which we have uploaded to the Data Libary as it may be of interest. It can be accessed directly at: http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/jxrimqp0