I began this book by asking in Chapter 2 how much institutional change had actually occurred in the Japanese business system in the fifteen years of economic pain since the burst of the bubble economy in 1990. To answer the question empirically, I followed Redding's (2005) business systems framework and explored institutional change at three levels of determination: culture, business environment, and business system. At the cultural level, the framework calls for analysis of three categories: rationale of business, identity, and authority. The evidence suggests that in terms of rationale, society as well as the senior executives who are presently running big corporate Japan continue to place the interests of stakeholders over those of shareholders. For identity, the data are consistent with continued group-orientation and identification with the company. The data on authority suggest that it remains strongly linked to age and sex. Education levels probably represent a third element linked to authority in society, but no data on this question are available.

At the second level of determination, the business environment, the analysis involves exploring trends in the categories of financial capital, human capital, and social capital. The Japanese financial system continues to be bank-led, with about two-thirds of corporate funding still drawn from banks rather than the markets. In terms of human capital, the Japanese school system has undergone a series of structural reform whose impact on the system is not yet clear. On-the-job training seems to have remained widespread.