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This thesis expands our knowledge on the antecedents of change and continuity in the governance and strategy of firms against the backdrop of an increasingly international business environment. Three research manuscripts form the core of the thesis and highlight the following issues: the reasons behind the growing internationalization of corporate boards (manuscript 1), the causes of the rising CSR activities of firms (manuscript 2), and the basis for the continued dominance of ‘old elites’ at the helm of many firms (manuscript 3). The investigated antecedents of change and continuity include a range of different internationalization dimensions, such as firms’ increasing foreign market activities and rising foreign ownership levels. The three manuscripts draw on resource dependence theory, legitimacy theory, and elite theory, respectively, to establish testable hypotheses. The hypotheses are then empirically analyzed using quantitative methods on original samples of Japanese firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The results inform us about the far-reaching consequences of internationalization on firms. However, the findings also underline that some firms can resist pressure to change under the right circumstances, thereby resulting in important implications for business scholarship and practice.