The accounting fraud comes to light — the breakdown of “results-above-all” management (2025)

The growth born of centripetal force, and the hollow at the centre of governance

The heart of this affair lies not in isolated bookkeeping errors but in the fact that the very corporate culture that sustained the company’s growth became the seedbed of the fraud. The discipline that made high targets non-negotiable was the driving force that pushed Nidec up into the world’s top motor maker. But that same discipline, at sites that could not close the gap between target and true capability, spread across many locations the deferral of “negative legacy” and the carrying-forward of losses. When the third-party committee cited excessive performance pressure, the absoluteness of the founder, and the failure of the checks meant to restrain it, it named precisely how the strength of the centripetal force and the weakness of governance were two sides of one coin.

The company had confronted the design of succession early and had been moving toward a collective leadership. Even so, the problems rooted in a results-above-all culture erupted midway through the handover, and moved toward resolution in the form of the resignation of the founder who held representative authority. After the charismatic manager departs, how to keep the discipline of non-negotiable delivery as an engine of growth while building in a brake so that it does not corrode the reliability of the accounts — the success or failure of the rebuild turns on that single point. The restatement of results, the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s review, and the pursuit of management’s responsibility were all still in progress at the time of writing, and the verdict on this affair is left to how far the new regime can accomplish the reconstruction of governance.