"How COVID-19 Has Transformed Japan's Culture of (Over-)Work" Presented at Department of sociology colloquium, Texas A&M University, September 2021.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted labor markets around the world. Workers and corporations scrambled to adjust their workstyles to a new normal, by avoiding the commute and working remotely from their homes or elsewhere. Japan is a country that stood out for its inability to adjust to the remote work environment. Comparative statistics show that Japan reported the lowest number of people engaged in remote work among the OECD countries, as well as the lowest percentage of corporations that offered remote work policies. In this colloquium, I will discuss why telework in Japan is difficult. The lack of telework in Japan may seem paradoxical, given the country's reputation for being technologically advanced. I argue that it is not the technological infrastructure that is lacking in the Japanese workplace, but distinct features of work embedded in Japanese culture and its collectivist roots that prevent the effective implementation of telework. I rely on recently published data from various sources, and apply key sociological theories such as implicit contracts, gift exchange, dramaturgy and impression management to substantiate my main arguments. The paper concludes by drawing on implications for the future of work in Japan.

"Taxonomies of Digital Vulnerability and COVID-19 Exposure Risk Profiles" Presented at Digital Inclusion Policy and Research Conference, University of Liverpool (online event), September 2021.

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ABSTRACT. In this article, we build upon our previous work "Digital inequalities in time of pandemic: COVID-19 exposure risk profiles and new forms of vulnerability" to examine two time intervals in the COVID-19 pandemic: the first wave in the late spring/early summer of 2020 and one year later at the onset of mass vaccination. We compare the two time intervals to chart the impact of digital inequalities across one year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the CERPs typology (see PDF), we argue that new kinds of risk have emerged with the COVID-19 virus, and that these risks continue to be unequally distributed. As we expose to view, digital inequalities and social inequalities continue to render certain subgroups significantly more vulnerable to exposure to COVID-19. Vulnerable populations bearing disproportionate risks include the social isolated, older adults, penal system subjects, digitally disadvantaged students, gig workers, and last-mile workers. Therefore, we map out the intersection between COVID-19 risk factors and digital inequalities on each of these populations in order to examine how the digitally resourced have additional tools to mitigate some of the risks associated with the pandemic. We shed light on how the ongoing pandemic is deepening key axes of social differentiation, which were previously occluded from view. These newly manifested forms of social differentiation can be conceived along several related dimensions. At their most general and abstract, these risks have to do with the capacity individuals have to control the risk of pathogen exposure. In order to fully manage exposure risk, individuals must control their physical environment to the greatest extent possible in order to prevent contact with potentially compromised physical spaces. In addition, they must control their social interactional environment to the greatest extent possible in order to minimize their contacts with potentially infected individuals. All else equal, those individuals who exercise more control over their exposure risk -- on the basis of their control over their physical and social interactional environments -- stand a better chance of staying healthy than those individuals who cannot manage exposure risk. Individuals therefore vary in terms of what we call their COVID-19 exposure risk profile (CERPs). CERPs hinge on preexisting forms of social differentiation such as socioeconomic status, as individuals with more economic resources at their disposal can better insulate themselves from exposure risk. Alongside socioeconomic status, one of the key forms of social differentiation connected with CERPs is digital (dis)advantage. Ceteris paribus, individuals who can more effectively digitize key parts of their lives enjoy better CERPs than individuals who cannot digitize these life realms. Therefore, we show that, both during the first wave of the pandemic and one year later, that digital inequalities are directly and increasingly related to both life-or-death exposure to COVID-19, as well as excess deaths attributable to the larger conditions generated by the pandemic. Authors span four continents: Jeremy Schulz, Hiroshi Ono, Matías Dodel, Gejun Huang, Antonio A. Casilli, Paola Tubaro, Laura Robinson, Aneka Khilnani, Shelia R. Cotton, Noah McClain, Lloyd Levine, Wenhong Chen, Anabel Quan-Haase, Deb Aikat, Maria Laura Ruiu, and Massimo Ragnedda.

Humans and machines in the emergence of service ecosystems: Addressing false dichotomy by embracing paradox. The 7th Naples Forum on Service September 9, 2021

Humans and machines in the emergence of service ecosystem: Addressing false dichotomy by embracing paradox. The 2021 Naples Forum on Service (The 7th Naples Forum Service). Capri, Italy 6-9 September 2021

Time Preferences are Influenced if Questions Look Like Investments or Loans. Subjective Probability, Utility and Decision Making 2021 Conference, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom (Online) August 23, 2021

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Most of the previous findings on time preferences are about choices of gains. However, intertemporal choices often involve losses sooner and gains later, as seen in investments, or gains sooner and losses later, as seen in loans. We conducted an experiment presenting intertemporal questions with Investment Frame and Loan Frame so that the questions seem like investments and loans although the potential outcomes across these conditions are identical. We found that time preferences were affected by the framing, and the patterns we obtained cannot be explained by either the conventional economic theory or loss aversion. This study has an important policy implication to influence individuals' patience without altering finial outcomes.

Cybershaming: Theorizing organizational shame in the digital age. 37th EGOS Colloquium 2021, Amsterdam (Virtual Conference) July 8-10, 2021

Board Composition and Corporate Fraud: Refining the Insider-Outsider Model. Presented at Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (online event), 33rd annual meeting, 2021.

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Corporate fraud is a growing problem across the globe. Previous studies have explored the relationship between governance structure and fraud occurrence with mixed results. While some scholars contend that there is a negative relationship between outside board members and corporate fraud (e.g. Beasley 1996), others explain that weaker governance mechanisms and passive boards can increase the likelihood of fraud (Zahl et al 2005). Both studies point out the conflicting findings regarding the effectiveness of outside directors. The inconclusive nature of previous studies, and the possibility that results may depend on the context as well as governance structures inspired us to conduct our present work. In this paper, we examine the relationship between board composition and corporate fraud in the case of Japan. We conducted statistical analyses to test whether board homogeneity can affect the occurrence of frauds in companies listed in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. We constructed a database of corporate fraud compiled from various data sources: Toyo Keizai Directory of Corporate Executives, Nikkei NEEDS Financial Database, and Sustaina Database of Corporate Fraud. Our database consists of approximately 9,000 firm-years during 2010 and 2016. For our analyses, we constructed four categories of directors: (i) lifetime directors (i.e. those who joined the company as fresh graduates), (ii) mid-career directors (i.e. not lifetimer but hired at mid-career prior to becoming director), (iii) outside directors, and (iv) outside auditors. Under this framework, (i) and (ii) are viewed as insiders, and (iii) and (iv) are viewed as outsiders. This categorization is a refined approach to conventional studies which used a binary distinction to the insider-outsider model. Distinguishing insiders into two distinct groups - lifetimers versus midcareer - allows us to test a more nuanced research question, that not all insiders (nor outsiders) are the same. All statistical models control for financial performance and indicators such as net profit ratio, ROE and debt ratio. The results of panel regressions reveal that an increase in the proportion of lifetime directors significantly increases the frequency of corporate fraud occurrence. More interestingly, an increase in the share of midcareer directors significantly decreases the frequency of corporate fraud. The results also show that an increase in the proportion of outside directors and outside auditors are marginally correlated with fraud occurrence. Do insider directors increase the risk of corporate fraud? Our study suggests that it depends on how an insider is defined, because not all insiders are the same. Fraud occurrence is positively correlated with lifetime directors, but negatively correlated with midcareer directors. Our findings make a contribution to the behavioral agency model, by providing further context to the insider-outsider distinction of corporate governance and its relationship to corporate fraud. The finding that outsider directors may increase the risk of fraud points to the possibility of "gray" (i.e., non-independent) outside directors, which include family members, former employees, etc. with previous relations to the company. Gray directors are less likely to strictly monitor management than truly independent directors (Uzun, Szewczyk and Varma, 2004).

The Impact of Gender Role Orientations on Subjective Career Success: A Multilevel Study of 36 Societies. AIB 2021 Onlince Conference June 25 - July 1,2021

Independence-interdependence as a moderator of team diversity and new product creativity. IPDMC 2021 June 6-8, 2021 Online

Covid-19 and telework: An international comparison. Presented at Japan Economic Association Meeting, May 2021

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This paper uses identical surveys conducted in July 2020 in eight countries - U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, Sweden, China, South Korea, and Japan - and examines telework use within and across countries. Data were collected from 2,060 persons ages 15+ per country, for a total of 16,480 persons in eight countries. We seek to answer the following questions: (1) Which demographic and socio-economic groups are more likely to use telework? (2) Is there any association between telework and other work-related outcomes such as life satisfaction and productivity at work? Our findings reveal that patterns of telework use are different not only geographically, but also between countries that adopted telework early (U.S., Sweden and China) and those that adopted it later. Within each country, there are notable differences in telework use between low and high income persons, and between those employed in small versus large firms. We also find that people who used telework before COVID-19 report higher life satisfaction compared to those who started using telework for the first time after the COVID-19 outbreak

Toward dynamic process model of digital transformation. Japan marketing Academy, spring Research Project Festival, March 13, 2021