In this paper, we re-examine the causes of power imbalance based on resource dependency perspective and main bank system research. Existing literature argues the following points: Main banks coordinate, oversee and take charge of an informal reorganization of firms; and to show commitments to other lenders they are prepared to support the firm by dispatching executives into senior managerial positions in the firm, often into top management positions, including chairman, vice-chairman, president or senior executive director.
We specifically extend the resource dependency perspective by combining it with findings of the main bank research to theoretically specify what types of organization possess superior power and have intentions to exert it. Our argument is that the more the firm depends not only on lenders but also on stock-holders, the less power the firm holds. Based on this theoretical development, we employ executive cooptation as the effect of power imbalance and use a multi-nominal regression analysis. The result indicates that not only the factor the main bank research examined works but also those factors the Keiretsu research have not examined have significant effects.