Japanese Research in Business History 2014 │ 31
Books on
Japanese Business History
Published in 2013
Abe, Takeshi and Kyōhei Hirano. Sen’i sangyō (Sangyō keiei-shi series) [The textile industry (Part of the Industrial History Series)]. Tokyo: Japan Business History Institute.
Adachi, Hiroaki. “Dai tōa kyōeiken” no keizaikōsō: Ken-nai sangyō to dai tōa kensetsu shingikai [The economic vision of the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”: Industries in the sphere and the Council for the Building of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
Baba, Toshiyuki. Asia no keizai hatten to sangyō gijutsu: Catch-up kara innovation [Asian economic development and industrial technology: How catch-up bred innovation]. Kyoto: Nakanishiya Shuppan.
The Committee on the History of Japan’s Trade and Industry Policy, eds. Tsūshō sangyō seisaku-shi 1980–2000 (zen 12 kan) [The history of Japan’s trade and industry policy, 1980–2000 (12 volumes)]. Tokyo: Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry.
This series, a history of Japan’s trade and industry policy from 1980 to 2000, began publication in 2011 and reached its conclusion in 2013. To compile the collection, the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry created a special compilation committee that collected resources, interviewed sources, and wrote the text of the volumes under the leadership of managing editor Professor Odaka Kōnosuke.
Continuing onward from the 17-volume series on the first stage of Japan’s trade and industry policy history, which covered the years from 1945 to 1979, the new compilation discusses the second stage of policy history in 12 volumes: “General remarks” (vol. 1; Odaka, Kōnosuke),
“Commerce and trade policy” (vol. 2; Abe, Takeshi), “Industry policy” (vol. 3; Okazaki, Tetsuji), “Commerce and distribution policy” (vol. 4; Ishihara, Takemasa), “Location, environment, and security policy” (vol. 5; Takeda, Haruhiro), “Core industry policy” (vol. 6; Yamazaki, Shirō), “Machinery and information industry policy” (vol. 7; Hasegawa, Shin), “Consumer goods industry policy” (vol. 8; Matsushima, Shigeru), “Industrial technology policy” (vol. 9; Sawai, Minoru), “Resource and energy policy” (vol. 10; Kikkawa, Takeo), “Intellectual property policy” (vol. 11; Nakayama, Nobuhiro), and “Small and medium enterprise policy” (vol. 12; Nakata, Tetsuo).
The last two decades of the twentieth century saw major upheavals in the environment that shaped policies on trade and industry. From changes in domestic macroeconomic conditions and economic globalization to increasing emphasis on markets, major fiscal restructuring, and a growing sensitivity to environmental issues on an international level, policymakers had to deal with significant shifts in many directions. The new 12-volume series examines how the policies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry changed in this dynamic context, discussing and analyzing individual measures by bureau.
Gōda, Hiroyuki. Sengo Nihon kaiun ni okeru bengichisekisen seido no shiteki tenkai [The historical development of the flag of convenience system in postwar Japanese maritime trade]. Sagamihara: Seizansha Co., Ltd.
Hasegawa, Naoya and Masaru Udagawa. Kigyōka katsudō de tadoru Nihon no kin’yū jigyō-shi [A history of the Japanese finance industry from the entrepreneurial perspective]. Tokyo: Hakuto-Shobo Publishing Company.
Hashikawa, Kenryū. Nōson-gata jigyō to America shihon-shugi no taidō: Kyōwa-koku shoki no keizai network to toshi kinkō [Rural-type business and the stirrings of American capitalism: Early economic networks and urban neighborhoods in the republic]. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Hirai, Gakuya. Sengo-gata kigyō shūdan no keiei-shi: Sekiyu kagaku – sekiyu kara mita Mitsubishi no sengo [A business history of business groups in the postwar mold: Petrochemicals, oil, and Mitsubishi after World War II]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyouronsha Ltd.
Hirota, Makoto. Nihon no ryūtsū - service sangyō: Rekishi to genjō [Japan’s distribution and service industries: Past and present]. Suita: Osaka University Press.
Ishii, Rie. Senzenki Nihon no chihō kigyō: Chiiki ni okeru sangyōka to kindai keiei [Prewar Japan and local enterprises: Regional industrialization and modern management]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyouronsha Ltd.
Kaneko, Ryōji. Nihon no chingin o rekishi kara kangaeru [A historical study of wages in Japan]. Tokyo: Junposha Co., Ltd.
Katō, Kenta and Naoki Ōishi. Case ni manabu nihon no kigyō: Business history e no shōtai [Case studies of Japanese companies: An invitation to business history]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku Publishing Co., Ltd.
The Kawasaki Chamber of Commerce and Industry, eds. Kawasaki hyaku-nen kigyō: Sōgyōsha no omoi, ima e, mirai e [The century companies of Kawasaki: How the visions of founders live on now and into the future]. Yokohama: The Kanagawa Shimbun.
Kawashima, Tomo’o. Kindai Nihon no beer jōzō-shi: Asahi Beer shozō shiryō de tadoru [A history of modern Japanese beer production: Insights from the Asahi Beer resource collection]. Kyoto: Tankosha Publishing.
Kikkawa, Takeo. Nihon no energy mondai (Sekai no naka no Nihon keizai: Fukakujitsusei o koete [2]) [Issues in Japanese energy (The Japanese economy in the global context: Overcoming uncertainty [2])]. Tokyo: NTT Publishing Co., Ltd.
Kitami, Masao. Aichi sen-nen kigyō: Meiji jidai-hen [The millennium companies of Aichi: The Meiji period]. Nagoya: The Chunichi Shimbun.
Kitano, Yūko. Ikitsuzukeru 300 nen no orimono-zukuri: Kyōto-fu hokubu – Tango chirimen-gyō no ayumi kara [How the textile industry has survived over three centuries: The perspective of the northern Kyoto Tango crepe industry]. Tokyo: Shinhyoron Publishing Inc.
Kōda, Hirofumi. Beiei management-shi no tankyū [Exploring the history of American-British management]. Tokyo: Gakubunsha Co., Ltd. ────. Chingin – jinji shogū seido no shiteki tenkai to kōseisei [The
historical development and fairness of wage and personnel treatment systems]. Tokyo: Gakubunsha Co., Ltd.
16 no oshie [1,400 years in business: 16 lessons from the world’s oldest company]. Tokyo Diamond, Inc.
Kyoto Business Studies Research Series Vol. 1 Editorial Committee, eds. Shimadzu seisakusho (Kyoto sangyōgaku kenkyū series dai 1 kan) [Shimadzu Corporation (Kyoto Business Studies Research Series, Vol. 1)]. Kyoto: The Center for Kyoto Business Studies, Ryukoku Univ. Matsuoka, Kenji. Jigyō shōkei to chiiki sangyō no hatten: Kyōto
shinisekigyō no dentō to kakushin [Business succession and the development of regional industry: The traditions and innovations of historic companies in Kyoto]. Tokyo: Shinhyoron Publishing Inc. Minakata, Tatsuaki. Ryūtsū seisaku to kourigyō no hatten [Distribution
policy and the development of the retail industry]. Tokyo: Chuokeizai-sha Inc.
Mitsubishi Corporation, ed. Shin-gendai sōgōshōsha-ron (Mitsubishi shōji – Business no sōzō to kakushin [2]) [A new theory of contemporary general trading companies (Mitsubishi Corporation: Creating and revolutionizing business [2])]. Supervised by the Research Institute of Faculty of Commerce, Waseda University. Tokyo: Waseda University Press.
Mitsui, Izumi, ed. Asia kigyō no keiei rinen: Seisei – denpa – shōkei no dynamism [The management philosophies of Asian enterprises: The dynamics of generation, propagation, and succession]. Tokyo: Bunshindo Publishing Corporation.
Mori, Ryōji. 19 seiki Doitsu no chiiki sangyō fukkō: Kindai-ka no naka no Württemberg shōeigyō [The promotion of regional industry in nineteenth-century Germany: Württemberg small business during modernization]. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press.
Moriya, Atsushi. Shibusawa Eiichi: “Rongo to soroban” to gendai no keiei [Eiichi Shibusawa: “The Analects and the Abacus” and contemporary management]. Supervised by the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation. Tokyo: Nikkei Publishing Inc.
Nagura, Bunji. Nihon gunji kanren sangyō-shi: Kaigun to Eikoku heiki gaisha [A history of the Japanese military industry: The Japanese navy and British weapons manufacturers]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyouronsha Ltd.
Nakanishi, Satoru. Kitamaebune no kindai-shi: Umi no gōshō-tachi ga nokoshita mono [A modern history of kitamaebune: The legacy of the
great sea merchants]. Tokyo: Seizando-shoten Publishing Co. Ltd. Nakanishi, Satoru, ed. Nihon keizai no rekishi: Rettō keizai-shi nyūmon
[A history of the Japanese economy: An introduction to the economic history of the archipelago]. Nagoya: The University of Nagoya Press. Nakaoka, Tetsurō. Kindai gijutsu no Nihon-teki tenkai: Ranpeki daimyō
kara Toyoda Kiichirō made [Japanese development of modern technology: From the Hollandomaniac lords to Kiichirō Toyoda]. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc.
Nishikawa, Shunsaku. Sūryō keizai-shi no genten: Kindai ikōki no chōshū keizai [Foundations of cliometrics: The Chōshū economy during the transition to modernity]. Edited by Toshiaki Ushijima and Osamu Saito. Tokyo: Keio University Press Inc.
The proliferation of research in cliometrics that began in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s laid the groundwork for two major works: Sūryō keizai-shi ronshū [The cliometrics collection] (a four-volume collection; 1976–1988) and Nihon keizai-shi [An economic history of Japan (an eight-volume collection; 1988–1990), with the latter painting a vibrant portrait of Japan’s development into an economic powerhouse. The driving force behind this thriving movement has been the Quantitative Economic History Association, which formed in 1971. To avoid overemphasizing the need for numerical analysis technology but still underscore the importance of the quantitative approach, the founders chose to make “quantitative economic history” the basis of the organization’s name.
Nishikawa Shunsaku, the writer of this new work and an original member of the Quantitative Economic History Association, began his academic career as a labor economist and econometrician. After assisting on numerical analyses by economic historians, Nishikawa began making his own forays into cliometrics and eventually published an influential analysis of Bōchō fūdo chūshin-an—a geographical description compiled during the 1840s in the Chōshū Domain, one of the four domains that led the Meiji Restoration. By applying national accounting methods to this extraordinarily valuable set of documents, which not only detail the populations, industries, occupational characteristics, and cattle herds of the various villages in the domain but also cover export and import statements on a village-specific basis, Nishikawa reveals the innovative character of
the Chōshū economy during the transition to modernity. This latest work offers a thorough discussion of these observations.
Ōba, Yoshio and Fumie Mesawa. Shihon-shugi no tomi to chi no keiei-shi [The wealth and wisdom of capitalism: A business history]. Sapporo: Hakurosha Co., Ltd.
Odaka, Kōnosuke and Shigeru Matsushima. Maboroshi no sangyō seisaku kishin-hō: Jisshō bunseki to oral history ni yoru zenbō kaimei [The enigma of the Act on Temporary Measures for the Promotion of the Machine Industry: Probing the truth through empirical analysis and oral histories]. Tokyo: Nikkei Publishing Inc.
For a period of time, Japan’s industrial policy was the subject of close scrutiny among observers both at home and abroad. As the Japanese economy and Japanese companies began to sputter in the 1990s, however, interest in the country’s industrial policy has steadily dissipated— a development that has left discussions of the policies’ significance and assessments of their impact from the perspective of contemporary economic policy largely dormant.
The development of the machine industry was essential to Japanese industrialization in the postwar climate. During the high-growth period, the Japanese government looked to propel the machine industry through the Act on Temporary Measures for the Promotion of the Machine Industry—a unique, intriguing piece of legislation that spurred mutual interaction among company executives, policymakers, financial circles, industry organizations, subsidiaries, and more to revitalize organizational structures. The nature and implications of the Act make it an illuminating resource for understanding how industrial policy ideology changed as Japan moved from the prewar period to the postwar period.
In their new work, Odaka and Matsushima cast light on the Act from numerous angles—including the perspectives of policy, politics, and business—to outline the motivations behind, circumstances surrounding, and outcomes of the Act. Interviews with policymakers who worked on the Act and executives who managed businesses under the legislation add a deep, intimate dimension to the book, providing readers with valuable information on contemporary corporate environments and the workings of
industrial policy operations.
Sawai, Minoru. Kindai Ōsaka no sangyō hatten: Shūseki to tayōsei ga hagukunda mono [The industrial development of modern Osaka: The products of agglomeration and diversity]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku Publishing Co., Ltd.
────. Mother machine no yume: Nihon kōsaku kikai kōgyō-shi [Dreaming of mother machines: A history of the Japanese machine tool industry]. Nagoya: The University of Nagoya Press.
As the machines that make machines, machine tools—or “mother machines”—control the precision and performance of the items that they produce. Although machine tools account for a relatively small proportion of the entire machine industry, they set the technological bar for all the sectors in the field. Now a leader in the machine tool industry, Japan lagged far behind the West in terms of machine tool technology prior to the onset of the Second World War. How, then, did the Japanese machine tool industry rise from its beginnings in the Meiji Period and move through the turning points of World War I, the interwar period, and World War II to emerge from its backward state? This new book, the life’s work of Japanese machine industry historian Minoru Sawai, traces the endeavors that shaped the industry over the 120-year period since its took shape in the 1890s.
The book comprises four main parts: the Meiji period through the interwar period (Part 1), World War II (Part 2), analyses of individual enterprises in the interwar period and during World War II (Part 3), and the high-growth period (Part 4) . Sawai fills each chapter with sound empirical analyses, laying out a thorough picture of the entire machine tool industry from a perspective rooted in industrial history, to create a text that represents required reading for anyone looking to understand the development Japanese industrial and corporate history.
Shibata, Yoshimasa. Chūgoku ni okeru Nikkei tabako sangyō [The Japanese tobacco industry in China]. Tokyo: Suiyōsha.
eliminating private-sector businesses from the field. This development prompted the tobacco companies that had been in business before the the system took effect to venture into the Korean and Manchurian markets during the Russo-Japanese War. Adopting a sweeping frame of historical reference, Shibata Yoshimasa’s new work examines the development of the Japanese tobacco industry in Manchuria and areas of China under Japanese control from the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War to the conclusion of the Asia-Pacific War. In addition to incorporating records from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, Shibata investigates sales reports from Japanese companies that operated in occupied markets, sifts through corporate balance sheets, and analyzes shareholder distributions to elucidate the various components of tobacco firm activity in China—from market entry and development to corporate reorganization and withdrawal.
One of the most prominent Japanese tobacco companies in China was Tōa Tobacco, which launched operations in 1906. Shibata shows how expansion and reorganization initiatives at Tōa Tobacco and the other Japanese firms in China were shaped not only by the motivations of entrepreneurs and investors but also by the sway of the Japanese government and the authority of the occupation regime. Japanese tobacco companies also challenged the dominance of British American Tobacco (BAT) in the market. By analyzing the competitive relationship between BAT and the Japanese faction to shed compelling light on BAT’s business activities in occupied China, Shibata adds a new element to the discussions in Howard Cox’s Global Cigarette: Origins and Evolution of British American Tobacco, 1880-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Shibata’s work fuses an examination of how Japanese companies expanded overseas and a look at how they competed with Western firms prior to the onset of World War II, making the book a valuable study in the field of global business history.
Shinozaki, Takao. Tetsudō to chiiki no shakai keizai-shi [A socioeconomic history of rail and region]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyouronsha Ltd. Shiomi, Haruhito and Kōjirō Umehara. Nagoya keizaiken no global-ka
taiō: Sangyō to koyō ni okeru mondaisei [The Nagoya economic sphere responds to globalization: Issues in industry and employment]. Kyoto: Koyo Shobo Corporation.
The “60-Year History” Editorial Committee, eds. Kansai namakon sangyō 60-nen no ayumi 1953–2013: Daikigyō to no taitō torihiki o mezashite kyōdō kumiai no chōsen [The 60-year history of the ready-mix concrete industry in the Kansai region, 1953–2013: Creating a cooperative to ensure arm’s-length transactions with major corporations]. Osaka: Small and Medium Enterprise Federation Research Institute.
Sugiyama, Shin’ya and Toshiaki Ushijima, eds. Nihon sekitan sangyō no suitai: Sengo Hokkaidō ni okeru kigyō to chiiki [The decline of the Japanese coal industry: Companies and communities in postwar Hokkaido]. Tokyo: Keio University Press Inc.
Takahashi, Hiroyuki. Kigyō kyōsōryoku to jinzai ginō: Mitsui bussan sōgyō hanseiki no keiei bunseki [Corporate competitiveness and workforce skills: A business analysis of Mitsui & Co.’s first fifty years]. Tokyo: Waseda University Press.
Through a case analysis of Mitsui & Co. spanning the years from the company’s founding in 1876 to the end of the Taisho period, this new book explains the impact of workforce skills on corporate competitiveness. The subject of the work—Mitsui & Co.—is the largest trading company in modern Japan, a firm that has worked by trial and error to maximize the value of its human resources over the course of its history.
To analyze the value that human resources generate, author Takahashi Hiroyuki applies Koike Kazuo’s analytical framework for “intellectual skill” and employs the concept of organizational control over the uncertainty of work systems. Takahashi adopts this approach because uncertainty analyses for white-collar work inherently involve the process of observing work to look for uncertainty as a whole, including both lost opportunities and profit-earning opportunities, on an organizational—not individual—basis and classifying workforce skills via those observations.
Within this uncertainty analysis framework, Takahashi first discusses Mitsui & Co.’s organizational capabilities in dealing with the risks that constituted elements of the company’s competitiveness. He then analyzes work across the Mitsui & Co. spectrum, following the firm’s value production process, and analyzes how the company used workforce skills in response to needs. Finally, Takahashi uses twenty-year panel data sets that track the work histories of 414 employees who joined the company
between 1903 and 1905 to illustrate the patterns and pathways of skill development.
Takeda, Izumi. Asa to men ga tsumugu Igirisu sangyō kakumei: Ireland linen-gyō to taiseiyō shijō [How hemp and cotton wove the British industrial revolution: The Irish linen industry and the Atlantic market]. Kyoto: Minerva Shobō.
Takeuchi, Keiji. Denryoku no shakai-shi: Nani ga Tōkyō Denryoku o unda no ka [A social history of electricity: The origins of the Tokyo Electric Power Company]. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc.
Tomizawa, Osami. Mohō to sōzō no fashion sangyō-shi: Daitoshi ni okeru innovation to creativity [Imitation, creation, and the history of the fashion industry: Innovation and creativity in major cities]. Kyoto: Minerva Shobō.
Udagawa, Masaru. Nihon no jidōsha sangyō keiei-shi [A business history of the Japanese automotive industry]. Tokyo: Bunshindo Publishing Corporation.
This new seven-chapter volume is a compilation of several papers by Udagawa Masaru, a renowned scholar of Japanese automotive history.
The first groups to attempt automotive production in Japan began to emerge in 1910, some time after their counterparts in the West had already started to establish themselves, but these Japanese manufacturers struggled to get their operations off the ground. Focusing on the prewar period, the first part of Udagawa’s work begins with a look at how Kaishinsha and Hakuyōsha represented Japan’s initial forays into automotive production at the end of the Meiji period. Udagawa then examines the activities of Ford and General Motors, two American companies that stormed the Japanese market in the 1920s as automotive demand surged in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, and discusses how the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of War enacted policies that paved the way for Nissan and Toyota to enter the market in hopes of driving the American competition out of the country.
For the second part of the book, Udagawa directs his attention to the postwar era and details the process by which the Japanese automotive industry rose from its initially feeble state into a powerhouse that
ultimately shot past the United States to secure the leadership of the world’s automotive industry by 1980. Honda’s eventual entry into the market, the contrasting nature of how industry giants Toyota and Nissan went about quality control, and the formation of the Toyota Production System all figure into Udagawa’s discourse, as well. The book concludes with a discussion of how Japan’s “torrential exports” of cars to the United States, which became a political issue in the 1980s, culminated with Japan instituting a system of voluntary restraints on its exports.
Distilling the history of the Japanese automotive industry—still a core component of the country’s economy—into a concise package, Udagawa’s book is perfect for beginners in the field.
Udagawa, Masaru, ed. Casebook Nihon no kigyōka: Kindai sangyō hatten no tateyakusha-tachi [Japanese entrepreneur casebook: The architects of modern industrial development]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku Publishing Co., Ltd.
Watanabe, Mariko. Chūgoku no sangyō wa dono yō ni hatten shite kita ka [The story of Chinese industry]. Tokyo: Keisō Shobō.
Yamada, Hironori. Shiei kōeki jigyō to toshi keiei no rekishi: Hōshō keiyaku no 80 nen [The history of privately operated public service and city management: 80 years of compensation contracts]. Suita: Osaka University Press.
Yamada, Kōzō. Dentō sanchi no keieigaku: Tōjiki sanchi no kyōdō no shikumi to kigyōka katsudō [Traditional production districts from the perspective of business administration: Cooperative structures and entrepreneurship in ceramics-producing districts]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku Publishing Co., Ltd.
Focusing on the ceramics industry, this work identifies the conditions for the survival of traditional production districts: mechanisms for passing industrial arts down from generation to generation and frameworks for facilitating systematic inter-organizational cooperation. However, these conditions took a diverse range of forms; every production district had its own business system. Author Yamada Kōzō explores this variability through case studies of Arita and Shigaraki—two traditional ceramics-producing districts.
In Arita, where pottery was the dominant trade, a plethora of unique pottery design concepts provided the foundation for harmonious cooperation among members of the production community. The district also featured a system for multi-tiered training and mechanisms for enhancing performance through competition.
Unlike the potters in Arita, the Shigaraki community placed substantial emphasis on entrepreneurship. The district’s product mix continued to diversify through the process of incorporating new customer needs, not unique design concepts. This approach differentiated the cooperative structure in Shigaraki, which was able to cope with the changing environment.
Yamada’s analysis shows that the survival of traditional production districts hinges on using competition to fuel improvements in the abilities of district members. At the same time, however, individual production districts had their own unwritten rules for preventing excessive competition and discouraged imitation-driven strategies that would pit members against each other. The existence of these frameworks was integral in achieving the balance between competition and cooperation that production districts needed to survive.
Yoshizawa, Masahiro, ed. Rekishi ni manabu keieigaku [How history informs the study of business administration]. Tokyo: Gakubunsha Co., Ltd.
