Japanese Overseas Research Articles

Musashino in Tuscany: Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860-1912 (review)

Reviewed by: Musashino in Tuscany: Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860-1912 Martin Collcutt Musashino in Tuscany: Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860-1912. By Susanna Fessler. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2004. 297 pages. Hardcover $65.00. From the late Tokugawa period through the Meiji era Japanese traveled abroad, whether to Europe, the United States, or other Asian countries, in steadily increasing numbers. Most of these travelers were male. Some went, or were sent, as students. Others were attached to government missions, and many went as independent travelers. Naturally, many kept some kind of record of their trip, sketchy or detailed, prosaic or poetic, personal or public. Susanna Fessler focuses on those Japanese travelers to Asia and the West between 1860 and 1912 who produced "literary" accounts of their travels, and she is particularly interested in those records that extended and adapted the Japanese literary tradition of the travelogue, kikōbungaku, whose prime examples include poems from the Man'yōshū, Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Diary, and Bashō's Oku no hosomichi. The best of the earlier Japanese kikōbungaku was characterized by allusions to uta-makura, "poetic pillows," or expressions laden with imagery and emotion related to specific famous sites, meisho. Writers from the poets of the Man'yōshū in the eighth [End Page 117] century to Bashō and other traveling poets in the Tokugawa period used and reused such utamakura, and some late Tokugawa and Meiji Japanese travelers to Asia and the West incorporated analogous features in their accounts. Other aspects of traditional/ domestic Japanese travel literature that appear in these later literary reports of foreign countries include nostalgia and feelings of loneliness and separation from one's home (ryoshū). The hardships of travel at any time could also induce feelings of travel weariness, melancholy, or tedium (ryojō). Fessler does not claim to present a comprehensive study of all Japanese travelogues to the West written between 1860 and 1912. Her goal is to trace overseas travel writing as a developing literary genre and identify significant trends within it. Her ultimate criterion for selection and judgment is literary sensibility-the lyrical and poetic qualities of the work and its sensitivity to nature. She makes it clear at the outset that she is not interested in accounts of overseas travel that are merely descriptive, such as those in Fukuzawa Yukichi's State of the West (Seiyō jijō) or the diaries of government officials who participated in diplomatic missions to the West in quest of treaty revision or Western technology. For Fessler, the tradition of kikōbungaku is only achieved in a Western context when travelers from Japan, looking beyond Western technology and their own immediate personal experiences, begin to incorporate the attentiveness to nature and the natural landscape that was such a feature of traditional kikōbungaku and to invest famous foreign locations, meisho, such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, with their own distinctive utamakura. After an introductory chapter on the history of travel and the aesthetics of travel writing in Japan, Fessler devotes the three following chapters to an analysis of early foreign travelogues of the late Tokugawa-early Meiji era (1860-1880), transitional travelogues of mid-Meiji (1880-1900), and mature literary travelogues of 1ate Meiji (1900-1912). In these she traces the growing extension and sophistication in the application of the kikōbungaku tradition. She introduces more than one hundred travelogues and analyzes in some detail the writings of sixteen travelers, from the student Nakai Hiroshi (Ōshū), who went from Yokohama to Paris in 1866, to Anesaki Masaharu, the scholar of philosophy and world religions, who made several extended visits to Europe after 1900. Some of the early travelogue authors she discusses, such as Nakai and Nomura Fumio, for instance, are now all but forgotten. Others, including Shibusawa Eiichi, Mori Ōgai, Tokutomi Roka, and Nagai Kafū, are well-known Meiji personalities and literary figures. In her quest for Japanese travelers' extension of the kikōbungaku tradition to foreign lands, Fessler begins by surveying accounts by the late Tokugawa shipwrecked travelers Daikokuya Kōdayū, Hamada Hikozō, and John Manjirō and the explorer Mamiya Rinzō. These men all produced accounts of their travels and...

Diaspora entrepreneurial networks: four centuries of history

Foreword: The State of the Field--Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Tufts University, Gelina Harlaftis, Ionian University, Corfu and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, Athens University of Economics 'On Entrepreneurial Diaspora'--Jonathan Israel, Institute for Avanced Studies, Princeton* Global Trading Ambitions in Diaspora: The Armenians and their Eurasian Silk Trade (1530-1750)'--Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Tufts University * 'Trading Networks in a Traditional Diaspora :Armenians in India, 1650-1800'--Sushil Chaudhuri, University of Calcutta * 'The 17th-Century Japanese Diaspora: Questions of Boundary and Policy'--William D. Wray, University of British Columbia, Canada * 'Coping with Transition. Greek Merchants and Shipowners between Venice and England in the 16th century'--Maria Fusaro, University of Chicago * 'The Maltese Entrepreneurial Diaspora from the Seventeenth Century Onwards'--Carmel Vassalo, University of Malta * *Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora from the Early Eighteenth to the Late Twentieth Centuries* Gelina Harlaftis, Ionian University, Corfu, * Toward a Typology of Greek Diaspora Entrepreneurship* Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, Athens University, *Jewish Bankers between 1850 and 1914: Examples of Internationalization along Ethic Lines* Huibert Schijf, University of Amsterdam * Middle-eastern Entrepreneurs in South-east Asia, c. 1750 to c. 1940 * William Gervase Clarence-Smith, University of London *Globalizing Ethnicity with Multi-local Identification: The Parsee, Indian Muslim and Sephardic Trade Diasporas in Hong Kong* Caroline Plss,The University of Hong Kong *The Trade Diaspora of Baghdadi Jews: From India to Chinas Treaty Ports, 18421937* Chiara Betta, University of Indianapolis * Western Corporate Forms and the Social Origins of Chinese Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks Wai-keung Chung, University of Washington Seattle* Irrational Exuberance: The Fatal Conceit of Chinese Financial Capitalism in Contemporary Indonesia Rajeswary Ampalavanar Brown, University of London *Diaspora Networks in the Asian Maritime Context* Antony Reid, Director of the Asia Research Institute Singapore* A Profile of Ethno-national Diasporas Gabriel Sheffer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 359 17 Crossing Empires: Greek Merchant Networks Before the Imperialistic Expansion, 17701870 Maria-Christina Chadziioannou, Director Hellenic Centre of Research *The Concept of Diaspora in the Contemporary World* Stathis Gourgouris, Columbia University *Epilogue In Memoriam A Scottish Merchant in Batavia, 18201840: Gilean Maclaine and the Dutch Connection* Frank Broeze

The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora (review)

Reviewed by: The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora Ketty Wong Dale A. Olsen. The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. Xxvii, 342 pp., illustrations, tables, appendixes, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN: 0813027640. The Chrysanthemum and the Song represents the findings of Dale Olsen's long-standing research of the South American Japanese diaspora between 1979 and 2001 in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. The author draws attention to the central role of music for the survival of Nikkei (people of Japanese descent living outside of Japan) culture. In his words, this book "is about how Nikkei South Americans perceive themselves, remember or learn about their heritage, negotiate their identities, and in effect culturally survive through music" (1). For this purpose, the author provides a comparative study of Nikkei musical practices based on reviews of literature, newspapers, archives, interviews, questionnaires, as well as his own performance of shakuhachi (vertical bamboo flute) and subjective impressions as participant-observer of musical events, which he refers to as "bimusical participatory reflections." An accompanying website of twenty audio examples, most of which were recorded by Olsen in ensembles with Nikkei performers, provides online sound illustrations of Japanese musical genres and instruments. Japanese immigration to South America started as early as 1899, when a group of Japanese contract laborers arrived in Peru to work in sugarcane plantations. Search for work, progress, and better living conditions have been the main motivations for subsequent displacements of Nikkei, [End Page 232] who are currently one of the most numerous immigrant groups in Brazil and Peru. Olsen argues that the Nikkei have been able to re-create and maintain a Japanese ethnic identity through the agency of cultural organizations that promote Japanese music, dance, and theater. Although the Nikkei have a strong demographic and cultural presence in several South American countries, Nikkei musical practices have received little scholarly attention within the field of Latin-American music studies. From this perspective, Olsen's research pioneers and fills a gap in an area that enlightens our understanding of diasporic identities in Latin America. Olsen borrows his book title from Ruth Benedict's study The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946, reprinted in 1967). While Benedict uses the chrysanthemum as a symbol of the Emperor, Olsen adopts it as a metaphor for Japanese immigrants and their "hard work in their 'new world'" (3). In Benedict's study, the sword represents Japan's military power, but it is also a symbol of the samurai's virtue and spirit, two aspects that Olsen sees intrinsic in song. The song in the book title represents all forms of music making that have helped the Nikkei preserve their cultural heritage. The author distinguishes "active music making" (singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments) from "passive music making" (listening to music, watching music videos, or attending concerts) as two effective forms stimulating direct and indirect cultural transmission (3). The Chrysanthemum and the Song is divided into eleven chapters, including an introduction which lays a theoretical background for the study of memory and identity. The author draws mainly on Mark Slobin's (1993) concepts of "superculture" and "subculture," and Jan Assmann's (1995) notion of communicative and cultural memory. Chapter 2 provides a brief account of Japanese immigration to the Americas since the late nineteenth century and a brief overview of Japanese and Okinawan music and musical instruments based on Charles Dunn's model of Japanese class structure before the Meiji period (1868–1912). Chapters 3 through 7 examine each country's migration history, as well as Nikkei musical practices through a series of "mini biographies" of Nikkei musicians and detailed ethnographies of musical events, such as the celebration of the Emperor's birthday and the anniversary of Japanese immigration. Chapters 8 and 9 describe song contests and karaoke singing as vehicles for learning Japanese language and songs by the younger Nikkei generations. A work of such broad geographical scope lends itself to comparative study, which Olsen follows in Chapter 10. He introduces seven social variables for the study of Nikkei identity: ethnicity, social...

Profitability of Japanese Manufacturing Subsidiaries in China

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of firms' ownership advantages, internal advantages, and entry mode to the performance of Japanese overseas subsidiaries in China based upon eclectic theory of Dunning. By using 146 Japanese manufacturing firms, we found that ownership advantages, internalization advantages, entry timing and entry experience to Hong Kong have positive relationships on profitability. However, we conclude that entry mode and capital participation by Sogo Shosha have no relationship on profitability.

Associations between Lifestyle and Mental Health in a Group of Japanese Overseas Workers and Their Spouses Resident in Duesseldorf, Germany

This study investigated associations between lifestyle factors and selected aspects of mental health in a group of Japanese overseas workers and their accompanying spouses who were residing in and around Düsseldorf, Germany, in February 1994. Considering four aspects of mental health (depression, mental instability, nervousness and neurosis) and six lifestyle factors (alcohol consumption, sleeping hours, cigarette smoking, physical exercise, eating breakfast and eating snacks), a cross-sectional study involving 822 volunteers (486 workers and 336 spouses) was performed using the Todai Health Index (THI) for surveying self-perceived health and a lifestyle related self-administered questionnaire. Alcohol consumption had no associations with any of the four aspects of mental health, and only very weak inverse associations were found between the other five lifestyle factors and the four aspects of mental health in the workers group. In the spouses group, physical exercise was the only lifestyle factor significantly associated with mental health.

Impact of Population Aging on Japanese International Travel to 2025

In this article, the authors forecast Japanese international travel to 2025. In addition to the usual economic variables, their model also captures both population aging and birth cohort effects on Japanese travel abroad. They predict the number of future Japanese overseas trips for males and females separately by 5-year age groups and in 5-year increments and conclude that the Japanese will continue to travel abroad in increasing numbers but that population aging will dramatically slow the rate of growth of future Japanese overseas travel. Although the number of overseas trips taken by “seniors” is predicted to increase sharply, the authors foresee fewer trips taken by the Japanese in the 20s and early 30s age groups. Finally, they examine the responses of the industry and the public sector in Japan to implications of a rapidly aging population on future international travel.

Concluding Commentary: On Migration, Diasporas, and Transnationalism in Asian American History

Concluding Commentary:On Migration, Diasporas, and Transnationalism in Asian American History Evelyn Hu-Dehart I am reading and reflecting on these provocative essays in Tokyo, where I have been living since June, gaining first-hand contact with two diasporic communities: the Chinese in Japan, and the descendants of Japanese Brazilians, Peruvians, and other Latin Americans returning to the proverbial "ancestral homeland." One group, the Chinese, is a very old diasporic community in Japan, having established a small trading presence in Nagasaki in the seventeenth century even as the new Tokugawa shogunate decided to close Japan off from contact with almost all foreigners. Over the centuries, this small but old Chinese community has been sporadically replenished by new arrivals, among them Japanese-speaking and acculturated Chinese from the then Japanese colony of Taiwan. Today, Chinese from the PRC rank very high among newcomers to Japan, often using relatively lax student visas to enter the country but with intention to work rather than study. They readily learn Japanese; may join thriving existing Chinese communities in Yokohama or Kobe; easily find work in the service and restaurant sectors, or as professionals; work in a co-ethnic business or start one themselves; and marry Japanese spouses. Although gaining Japanese citizenship is extremely difficult, they can acquire long-term work visas and permanent residencies. Of course, they use cell phones and email, and fly home regularly to visit. This is a history that enriches and reinforces what we already know about the Chinese diaspora, about which a good deal has been written. [End Page 309] Latin Americans are another prominent group of newcomers to Japan, having been granted a privileged migration status if they have at least one Japanese grandparent who had settled in a Portuguese or Spanish-speaking country in the Americas. Known commonly as degaseki, these Latin Americans in Japan present an unusual twist on the diaspora paradigm, because now fifteen years into this migration, it is not at all certain whether the degaseki constitute the Japanese diaspora coming home, or should be more properly considered extensions of the Brazilian, Peruvian, Bolivian, and Argentinian diasporas to Asia. While given the right to return to Japan to work and help alleviate the country's labor shortage, they do not automatically re-naturalize as Japanese. To both Japanese and degaseki alike, Asian heritage and faces juxtaposed with Latino cultures create complex identities that defy expectations on both sides. Many degaseki are already of mixed Japanese-Latin American heritage, have spouses with no trace of Japanese heritage, and hence children with little connection and practically no memory of things Japanese. Many migrants do not speak Japanese and have difficulty and little incentive to learn, given the predominance of factory jobs into which they are hired. In school, the children are taught in Portuguese or Spanish, their primary language, and only secondarily and often poorly in Japanese. They may prefer the Latin American meat-laden churrasco to the delicate bite-size sushis, and they don't forget to celebrate major Latin American fiestas, such as the Brazilian carnaval, and read Portuguese and Spanish newspapers published in Japan to stay abreast of political and, most importantly, sports news from "home." So what is home, what is their core identity, what culture do they mostly identify with? Given their original incentive to "return home" to find work, they find themselves pining for another "home," to which they vow to return, no matter how long they have been away in Japan. Just like the subjects in the four essays gathered for this special issue, the histories of the Chinese and the degaseki in Japan begin with migration, that is, moving out of home and relocating to another place, voluntarily or under duress, as labor migrants, as exiles or political migrants seeking refuge from war and its aftermath, in desperation or in protest. Historians have discovered and largely agree, however, that the old push-pull immigration model is inadequate to fully apprehend and appreciate [End Page 310] the experiences and mind-set—subjectivities in post-modern parlance—of people on the move who relocate and settle elsewhere, forging new relationships out of necessity and desire without having to abandon old networks...

The chrysanthemum and the song: music, memory, and identity in the South American Japanese diaspora

Music helps form and nurture ethnic identity for large populations of people of Japanese descent in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and Paraguay. In a story never before told, Dale Olsen offers a musical history and ethnography of this vibrant Asian diaspora, the largest population of overseas Japanese in the world and one of the most successful subcultures in South America. An early immigration of Nikkei - people of Japanese heritage - landed on the coast of Peru in 1899. Hundreds of thousands more arrived in the first half of the 20th century, most seeking work as agricultural laborers. Olsen argues that music became essential for nourishing their Japaneseness, perhaps second only to speaking the Japanese language. Music making, music listening, and dancing all express the soul of the people and tell others who they are, he says. Communicated and transmuted through the intricate workings of collective memory, music has the power to reconstruct and manipulate cultural identity; it helps immigrants maintain strong connections to their ancestral home and to forge new ones in their adopted culture. Olsen provides a history of Nikkei emigration and music from the Japanese homelands, comments on the contributions and the roles of song contests and karaoke in shaping their new social life and identity, and discusses Nikkei aesthetic values. His research sources include interviews, memoirs of immigrants and their children, newspaper accounts of Nikkei musical experiences and thoughts, and observations of musical events. Olsen also documents and interprets his own performances with and for the Nikkei on the Japanese shakuhachi flute. Covering five generations of Nikkei over more than a century, this ethnomusicological investigation makes an original contribution to Japanese diaspora studies. It will be of special interest to scholars of the sociology of immigrant cultures and identity formation, Asian and Latin American studies, and ethnomusicology. It offers a model of innovative theoretical and experimental ways to learn about subcultures in diaspora.

"Nichirin-heisha"("sun-shaped" barrack for agricultural training) - a symbol of the campaign for Japanese emigration to Manchuria-Mongolia during World War II -

"Nichirin-heisha"("sun-shaped" barrack for agricultural training) - a symbol of the campaign for Japanese emigration to Manchuria-Mongolia during World War II -

Affective Dimensions of the Japanese Foreign Language Learner: Implications for Psychological Learner Development in Japan

As learner-centred approaches are gaining popularity in many language classrooms, the affective dimensions of learners and the interaction effects of learners and teachers have become an important theme for research and assessment. This paper explores how Japanese learners of English as a foreign language evolve in two geographically distinct regions in Japan, one urban and one rural, with different exposure toWestern cultures. Demographic and personal factors under consideration include: geographical location of the university, gender, English study outside of school, native speaker teacher experience and overseas experience. These personal factors were further explored to determine how they interact with the five experimental themes: language attributes, Japanese identity, learner style, tolerance of ambiguity and motivation. Significant interactions were found between overseas experience and Japanese identity, native speaker teacher experience and learner style, overseas experience and learner style, gender and motivation, native speaker teacher experience and motivation, and overseas experience and motivation. Implications for learner and educator collaboration are explored.

Expansion of Japanese Retailers Overseas

There have been a number of studies of foreign retail entry into Japan but few that consider the moves of Japanese retailers to other Asian countries. Nonetheless expansion into Asia of Japanese retailers, notably since the early 1990s, has been considerable. Many have been attracted by the large size of several national markets. Large Japanese trading houses have played a significant direct and indirect role in the international moves of Japanese retailers. China has become the major place of investment for Japanese retailers with 21 retail companies established by Japanese firms. The history of the internationalisation of Japanese retailing shows three phases of development. A first phase is characterised by department stores, a second phase is a slowing of activity in the late 1990s and a third phase of rapid expansion is presently evident. The key to the current phase is the establishment and strength of non-retail supply firms in the same East Asian region into which retailers wish to expand.

The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora

The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora

The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora

Journal of Latin American AnthropologyVolume 10, Issue 1 p. 239-241 The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora Shuhei Hosokawa, Shuhei HosokawaSearch for more papers by this author Shuhei Hosokawa, Shuhei HosokawaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 May 2008 https://doi.org/10.1525/jlca.2005.10.1.239AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume10, Issue1April 2005Pages 239-241 RelatedInformation

Viewing Nations, Narrating Hybridity: Okinawan Diasporic Subjectivity and Japanese Satellite Telecasts in Colonia Okinawa, Bolivia

Suzuki examines the multiple roles that transnational media can play in a diasporic community by analyzing reactions to and interpretations of NHK, a company engaged in satellite broadcasting of Japanese programs to Okinawan-Bolivians in Colonia Okinawa, a small farming settlement in Bolivia established by Okinawan immigrants in 1954. Rather than interpreting Okinawan-Bolivians’ enthusiastic viewing of NHK satellite telecasts in Colonia Okinawa as a sign of their nostalgic longing for Japan, Suzuki suggests that their viewing of NHK programs enacts practices of hybridization, the ambiguous and complex process of subjectivity formation that he defines in terms set by Ien Ang. Since Okinawa, the “homeland” of these diasporans in Bolivia, has been in a contentious and ambivalent relationship with the “homeland-nation-state” of Japan over the last century, Okinawan-Bolivians’ hybrid subjectivity needs to be understood alongside Okinawans’ profoundly ambiguous subject-position vis-à-vis Japan’s majority population and the latter’s own diaspora. Moreover, because Okinawan settlers in Colonia Okinawa have also identified themselves as powerful “Japanese” farm owners who employ local “Bolivians” as inexpensive laborers, and because hundreds of their Bolivia-born children have return-migrated to urban Japan in the past two decades to accumulate capital, the Okinawan-Bolivian community’s identification with Japan has gained crucial economic and symbolic meanings within the local Bolivian context. Given these complexities of Okinawans’ and the Okinawan diaspora’s subjectivity in the past and present, Suzuki argues, NHK satellite telecasts in Colonia Okinawa have provided multiple reference points for Okinawan-Bolivians to articulate their ambivalent subjectivity as Okinawans and as an Okinawan diaspora that is not identical to the generic Japanese diaspora and, at the same time, to figure their belonging to the nation-states of Bolivia and Japan.

Race, nation and diplomacy: Japanese immigrants and the reconfiguration of Brazil's ‘desirables’

An examination of early Japanese immigrants in Brazil (1908–1942) suggests that the infrastructure of Japanese‐Brazilian relations was framed before Brazil declared war on Japan in 1942. This infrastructure was built on a desire by the governments and elite of both countries to achieve two objectives: capitalist expansion and domestic tranquility. These two objectives were manifested in a coherent programme of migration, expansion of international trade, and domestic order. In Japan, this was translated into a concerted campaign by governmental agencies and officials, corporations, and banks to export people and capital to Brazil. In Brazil, efforts were made to cooperate with the Japanese emigration establishment to manage and regulate the activities and lives of Japanese migrants. The success of this diplomacy was a product of an organised campaign that effectively exploited the dynamics of migrant labour, investment‐relations, and racism.

TRANSITION IN OVERSEAS OFFICE LOCATIONS OF JAPANESE REGIONAL BANKS IN ASIA

Due to globalization in finance, the restructuring of Japanese banking industry is accelerating. This paper focuses on the changes in the location of Japanese overseas banking and explores the backgrounds behind the trends. Two Japanese regional banks are taken as case studies. As a result, Japanese regional banks gravitated their overseas business into Asia throughout the 1990s. Simultaneously, decentralization from Hong Kong was proceeding among the locations of their overseas offices within Asia. The paper concludes that the business style of Japanese banks, which used to be very uniform, is becoming more diversified.

Establishment of a Japanese-owned Automobile Company in India and Construction of Its Production System

India, as well as other Asian countries, especially China and Thailand, has experienced a rapid growth in its automobile industry since the 1990s. One of the main reasons for this growth was the implementation of an economic liberalization policy that accelerated a huge amount of direct investment in India on the part multinational motor companies. These companies established 100%owned assembly plants or joint ventures that collaborated with local business groups. In 2002, 12 motor companies, including three Japanese ones, competed for the market shares of passenger cars and multi-utility vehicles. While the total number of vehicles produced in India has gradually increased, the scale of production per company has remained small because of severe market competition. Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), a joint venture created by Toyota Motor Company, Japan, with the Kirloskar Group, India, was investigated in an attempt to explain the small-scale vehicle production system of an overseas Japanese automobile plant. TKM was founded on the Bidadi Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Bangalore in 1997 and started commercial production of multi-utility vehicles in 1999. Its annual vehicle production is approximately 30, 000 units, which is far fewer than those of Toyota-owned overseas plants in North America and Europe. Therefore, TKM is a suitable example for considering the above topic. TKM constructed an efficient factory to achieve cost reduction. Compared with Toyota's factory buildings in Japan, that of TKM is lower in total height and narrower in terms of aisle space. Instead of costly steel-collar robots, it utilizes manual workers in production processes like welding, painting, and body assembling. These processes are mostly automated in Japan. Some of the machinery and equipment were shifted from Toyota-owned factories in Japan or Southeast Asia to maintain a low initial investment. TKM employed an improved, “just-in-time” (JIT) system to adapt to small-scale production and the local economic environment. TKM's parts suppliers are located in agglomerations of the automobile industry in Delhi, Pune, and Chennai, as well as Bangalore. TKM purchases 70% of its parts in monetary terms from Indian branches of Toyota group companies located in Bangalore. These group companies play an important role as core suppliers to TKM. TKM employs the milk run logistics system for parts delivery to perform JIT production. The milk run system has made it possible to minimize transportation costs. TKM established a transportation company responsible for transporting its auto parts. The company travels from supplier to supplier to collect parts along its routes. After arranging the parts in a long deck truck at consolidating stations in Delhi, Pune, and Chennai, the truck is driven to TKM every day. The suppliers surveyed in Bangalore are divided into the following two types. Members of the first type are Japanese owned and established as dedicated suppliers to TKM. Members of the second type are locally owned and their business with TKM comprises a small percentage of their sales. The local suppliers have many customers that vary from vehicle manufacturers to other industrial customers. In India, the business per customer is so small that suppliers need to have many business partners and networks to make a profit. Some of the Japanese suppliers tried to expand their business relations with other customers to meet the small-scale production of TKM.

On the Myth of theKeiretsuNetwork: Japanese Electronics in North America

This study of Japanese consumer electronic networks in North America challenges conventional wisdom on the pervasiveness of keiretsu ties in Japanese production networks abroad. The consumer electronics industry poses hard questions to current views on the relationship between keiretsu and FDI not only because of the more modest internationalization of subcontractors, but more interestingly, because Japanese electronic production networks overseas remained remarkably closed to outside suppliers even in the absence of keiretsu commitments that could constrain purchasing decisions. This article offers a comparison of domestic subcontracting practices in the Japanese automobile and consumer electronic industries, a discussion of the internationalization of electronic part makers, and an analysis of the sourcing strategies of Japanese firms in North America. The article highlights the impact of the non-market environment in Japanese FDI strategies since Japanese companies embarked on foreign production in North America as a direct response to export caps imposed by the American government and/or tighter regional integration rules adopted in NAFTA. Revealingly, Japanese automobile and electronic firms diverged in their reliance on subcontracting firms to meet the more stringent demands for regional production.

The Japanese in Latin America: on the uses of diaspora

AbstractInternational migration only began to affect Japan in the late nineteenth century, but since then there have been three waves of emigration, two of them customarily regarded as diasporas. Recent discussions of the concept of diaspora have highlighted a tendency for the broadening of the definition to encompass many different migratory situations. This article considers the debate over the characteristics of diaspora and examines a set of five criteria for a definition that can be used, among other things, to distinguish diaspora from immigrant settlement and transnationalism. These criteria are then set against the case of the first Japanese diaspora which led to the establishment of significant communities of Nikkeijin in the Americas from the 1890s to the 1970s. The Nikkeijin are shown to be a model diasporic group, except for a lack of transnational contacts within the diaspora. The paper also considers further theoretical propositions concerning the evolution of ‘homeland’ society views of the diaspora. It is shown that these may have considerable importance in determining any ‘return’ migration that may occur. In the Japanese case, the migration of Nikkeijin to Japan since 1990 has been problematic. Constructions of the continuing Japanese‐ness of the diaspora population have been contested, and differences rather than similarities have been stressed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The strategic HRM configuration for competitive advantage: Evidence from Japanese firms in China and Taiwan

The purpose of the present study was to identify the pattern of HRM practices that would lead to an improvement in business performance in Chinese- and Taiwanese-based Japanese affiliates in the light of a configurational perspective, following the current debate in the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM). In particular, a set of working hypotheses regarding the structural relationship among HRM practices for producing enhanced business results was drawn from the organizational learning theoretical framework that emphasizes a linkage between the process of learning and firm performance. Our conceptual model and specific hypotheses were examined using a sample of 286 Japanese affiliates operating in Mainland China and Taiwan. The results provided basic support for the configurational hypothesis in predicting the financial aspect of an affiliate's performance. It is argued that the findings of the study have several important implications for the untested relationships between high commitment work practices (HCWPs) and high performance work systems (HPWSs) from a Japanese management perspective. In addition, the manner in which each HRM technique can be used by Japanese overseas affiliates to enhance their learning and adaptive capabilities is discussed.