Japan’s retail investors are paying closer attention to corporate governance, citing it as a key consideration when investing in stocks, a survey by U.S. ranking and research firm J.D. Power shows.

Shareholder rights, timely disclosure, board oversight and cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders made up about 40% of the issues that stockholders care about, found the survey of 6,088 investors conducted in March.

"That weight was higher than we had expected,” said Kiichi Umezawa, J.D. Power Japan’s managing director.