Vale Hiroshi Okano

In December 2021, Professor Hiroshi Okano, from Osaka City University (OCU) in Japan, complained of poor health and underwent tests at a hospital, where he was found to have a brain tumour and was immediately hospitalised for surgery. However, all the tumours could not be removed. His wife, Maki, was cruelly told by Hiroshi’s doctor that he was not expected to recover and could receive no further treatment. Nevertheless, Maki believed in the miracle of her husband’s recovery and continued to nurse him devotedly, including searching for a hospital that would provide him with a new treatment, but on 13 July 2022, after a long struggle with his illness, Hiroshi passed away at the age of 65 years. For those who recall Hiroshi’s formidable figure, it was not easy to accept that he had fallen ill. Hiroshi’s strength was equally evident in his approach to research. This vale looks back on his short life and documents his personality and achievements. Hiroshi Okano entered the Faculty of Commerce of OCU, one of the higher educational institutions in commerce in Japan, in 1976. And in 1980, after graduating from the university he immediately joined Toyota Motor Corporation. Having worked for the world’s largest car manufacturer, he returned to the graduate school of OCU in 1983 to begin his research life. The 1980s was when new views and methodologies were introduced in accounting research, especially in accounting history. In those days, when electronic journals were not available, he used to eagerly await the arrival of journals from overseas by post and waited in the university library for the moment when the journals arrived. There were few researchers in Japan at that time who actively tried to keep abreast of cutting-edge trends in accounting research. In 1988, Hiroshi was recruited as a member of the academic staff at the OCU Faculty of Commerce. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1992 and published his first book, Japanese Management Accounting: A Historical and Institutional Perspective (in Japanese) in 1995. His intention in this book was to identify the characteristics of the management accounting systems and theories developed in Japanese companies from a historical and institutional perspective. He argued that the specificity of management accounting practice in Japanese firms, unlike Western firms, lay in the ‘invisibility’ of accounting. His academic research was well received in the practical world and the book received the Academic Award from the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The book also earned him a PhD and a promotion to professor in 1998. In 2003, he published his second book, Global Strategy and Accounting (in Japanese). His focus in this book was on the universality and specificity of accounting methods through observing and analysing the bidirectional action of target costing between Toyota’s Japanese headquarters and its overseas subsidiaries and comparing the implementation of target costing in Japanese companies with overseas companies such as Boeing and DaimlerChrysler. Editorial