This article investigates how Japanese firms deviate from a diffusing corporate governance practice—holding their annual shareholder meeting in the same date with other firms. Prior to the late of 1990s, despite making it impossible for shareholders who have stocks of multiple firms to attend annual shareholder meetings of firms they invest, such a practice was common among Japanese firms. However, after the late of 1990s, some Japanese firms have deviated from the diffusing practice by changing their annual shareholder meeting date. In this article, using a longitudinal dataset on the annual shareholder meeting of the Japanese firms in the period of 1995 through 2004, I examine the antecedents of the deviant behavior by Japanese firms and find (1) that foreign shareholders encourage firms to deviate from the practice, (2) that organizational misconduct (in this context, payoff scandals) leads to deviation from the practice not only by perpetrators of payoff scandals but also by industry bystanders—firms that do not involved in the payoff scandals but are in the same industry as perpetrators, (3) that as the number of deviations in the same industry increases, firms are more likely to deviate from the practice.