Japan's Industrial Structure Research Articles

A Study on the Theoretical System of Strategic Trade Policy and the Choice of Japan's Strategic Trade Policy after the World War II (1945-1990)

After the World War II, Japan established and implemented strategic trade policy and succeeded in recovering its economy. On the basis of literature review, this thesis sorts out three traditional trade theories and analyzes the strategic trade policies implemented by Japan in different historical stages in combination with the study of Japan's strategic trade theories, and points out their strategic objectives, specific measurements and influence. It makes up for the lack of systematic and comprehensive explanation and argumentation of national conditions analysis, strategic objectives and relevant specific measures, including the impact of external environment in the existing literature. By comparing with the western countries, the paper summarizes four characteristics of Japan's strategic trade policy to promote the leap of Japanese economy: in the early stage, it made full use of the support and utilization of the United States; In the early and middle period, trade protectionism was established; In the medium term, it gradually opened up and Japan's international influence enhanced. In the middle and late period, Japan succeeded in transforming in the obstacle, and it promoted the upgrading of Japan's industrial structure, so that it can compete with developed countries. The experience of strategic trade policy with Japanese characteristics can be used as reference for China from two aspects: timely adjustment of trade policy and emphasis on science and technology.

Nonlinear mechanisms of CO2 emissions in growing and shrinking cities: An empirical study on integrated effects of aging and industrial structure in Japan

For the first time, this research aims to reveal how population age changes the nexus of industrial structure upgrading-carbon emissions under urban growth and shrinkage using a panel threshold model. Population aging, industrial structure upgrading, and CO2 emission mitigation represent three main challenges for urban development globally. However, only a few studies have integrated these challenges under the same framework, especially in the context of differentiated urban development patterns. Taking Japan as an example, urban development patterns are classified into four types using urban population and population density data from 2010 to 2020, including growth type, potential shrinking type, smart shrinking type, and continuous shrinking type. Each type's CO2 emission patterns regarding energy consumption are then examined. After controlling for several socioeconomic and urban land scale variables, population aging and industry structure were used as the threshold variable and the key explanatory variable in the panel threshold model, respectively. The results showed that growing cities have lower carbon emissions than any of the shrinking cities in terms of CO2 emissions per capita. A single-threshold effect of population aging was detected that changes the nexus of industrial structure upgrading-CO2 emissions in potentially shrinking cities and continuously shrinking cities, while no such nonlinear effect was detected in the growing group. The mitigating effect of industrial structure upgrading on CO2 emissions per capita increases as the aging level crosses 23.71% in potentially shrinking cities. In contrast, the promoting effect of industrial structure upgrading on CO2 emissions per capita weakens as the aging level crosses 20.27% in continuously shrinking cities. This study implies a nonlinear mechanism of CO2 emissions considering the integrated effects of aging and industrial structure, contributing to developing a rational and efficient emission reduction strategy considering differentiated urban development patterns.

Effects of Population Movement in Local Industrial Structure in Japan

Effects of Population Movement in Local Industrial Structure in Japan

Engineering education and training in small and medium–sized manufacturing enterprises in Japan

Japan's industrial structure comprises mainly small and medium–sized manufacturing enterprises, which account for more that 99% of all factories and contribute to the expansion of the Japanese economy by forming a huge subcontracting structure. However, almost all of these companies have common problems, one of the biggest being the difficulty in recruiting and developing the personnel necessary for the expansion of the business. This paper describes the patterns of recruitment and personnel development in small manufacturing firms, and presents some of the information available in published reports from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Japanese Society for Engineering Education.

Prospects for, and role of, science and technology: a Japanese perspective

Japan's role in developing and using science and technology is considered in a philosophical vein where cooperative structures prevail between nations. Japan's industrial structure is altering to focus on high technology and its economic strength can now be applied to societal and environmental questions. Newly emergent countries can readily partake of the fruits of technology which must be applied to strengthening basic knowledge and research, improving the quality of life and promoting an international exchange of ideas. Unilaterally created structures in Japan will succeed if other countries show a reciprocal interest in Japan's contribution. Competition and cooperation in science will bring success to global efforts for economic and cultural development.

Japanese and US perspectives on the National Innovation Ecosystem

Coinciding with a proposal for a National Innovation Ecosystem (NIES) by the US Council on Competitiveness, Japan's Industrial Structure Council proposed a major shift from a technology policy to an innovation policy based on the ecosystem concept. While Japan and the US achieved success through mutual inspiration in the 1980s and 1990s, both countries need a new approach to sustaining their national innovation, especially in light of the new paradigm for a post-information society, which began in the early 2000s. Realizing this need led both countries to reexamine the broader applications of the ecosystem discipline to technology policy systems. This paper analyzes the parallel paths of technology policy in Japan and the US over the last three decades. We found that the development cycle in both countries is governed by four ecosystem principles: (1) sustainable development through substitution, (2) self-propagation through co-evolution, (3) organizational inertia and inspired learning from competitors, and (4) heterogeneous synergy.

Environmental Issues and Theory of Management

In environmental economics, activities aimed at reducing environmental pressure are covered by the expression ‘Internalization of external diseconomies’. However, management studies has no defined terminology for corporate activities tackling environmental problems. This paper therefore introduces new terminology — ‘the greening of management’ and ‘spontaneization’, meaning the self-generated and spontaneous involvement of companies with environmental issues — and discusses them in a contemporary context. The paper further notes five changes in social awareness of environmental problems that have accompanied the increasing gravity of environmental problems from pollution to potential breakdown, and explores the roles and limits of technological and economic countermeasures. Corporate activity is seen as requiring evolution towards environmentally conscious management, comprising measures such as corporate social responsibility, higher product durability and eco-business, and realizing the importance of longer perspectives and plurality in decision-making principles. It notes in conclusion that, in spite of the high competitive power of productive or ‘artery’ industries, supportive or ‘vein’ industries are not sufficiently developed in Japan's industrial structure; as a result, the possibility is raised that global economic growth led by Asian interests will cause a worldwide environmental crisis that is Asian in origin.

Notes from Toyota-Land: An American Engineer in Japan (review)

Reviewed by: Notes from Toyota-Land: An American Engineer in Japan Mark Fruin (bio) Notes from Toyota-Land: An American Engineer in Japan. By Darius Mehri. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2005. xviii, 231 pages. $26.00. Darius Mehri's Notes from Toyota-Land is a colorful, diary-like account of the personal and working lives of numerous employees—regular and temporary, Japanese and non-Japanese—at a Toyota Motor affiliate somewhere in Japan during the 1990s. Anyone thinking about working for a Japanese firm in Japan or overseas should read this book, especially since insider accounts of working-for-the-Japanese, once fairly common, have all but disappeared in recent years. The subtitle, An American Engineer in Japan, coupled with the reference to Toyota in the title give the impression that readers will learn a lot about Toyota. The author, in fact, claims that his account offers a detailed account of the Toyota Production System (p. xvi). Nothing could be farther [End Page 280] from the truth. In fact, we learn little about Toyota, the Toyota Production System, interfirm relations within the Toyota group of companies, engineers and engineering practices at Toyota and its affiliates, and the Japanese automobile industry in general. We do learn about Mehri's likes and dislikes during his three-year stay in the employ of a second-tier Toyota affiliate, fictitiously named Nizumi. We also learn about his growing pro-union sympathies and his feelings that Japanese and non-Japanese workers, at least at his company, are overworked, underpaid, and not treated with much respect by many managers. Unfortunately, Mehri's account cannot be considered scholarship. There is no effort to situate his account temporally, spatially, and structurally within a network of firms that interact with Toyota and Japan's industrial structure; there is no discussion of research design and method—how data are collected and analyzed. The account is anecdotal at best and much of it hearsay. Occasionally, there is an effort to link his story to the scholarly literature on a particular topic, but the effort is unsystematic and the bibliography spotty. The latest work on Japan's industrial organization and firm-level capabilities, published in the 1980s, 1990s, and thereafter, by scholars such as Masahiko Aoki, Ronald Dore (after British Factory-Japanese Factory), Mark Fruin, Jeffrey Liker, James Lincoln and Michael Gerlach, and Ikuhiro Nonaka are not mentioned. Instead, work published 40, even 50 years ago, is cited when more recent scholarship is not. For example, Nakane Chie's 1970 thesis about Japan as a vertical society is cited, but none of the recent work that challenges Nakane is brought up. Christena Turner's studies of work and union relations in small firms and Hugh Whittaker's work on innovation in small and medium-sized firms are likewise missing. The only major and recent work on industrial organization that is cited, The Machine That Changed the World, is used as a foil. Mehri often says how misleading the study is, given his experiences in Toyota-land. But he offers no serious challenges to the findings, methods, and arguments of The Machine That Changed the World, the result of a decade-long, worldwide survey of the motor vehicle industry led by MIT. Such failings undermine the value of Notes from Toyota-Land as scholarship. However, as an American engineer's first-hand account of a multiyear sojourn in Japan's industrial heartland, Notes from Toyota-Land can be read with interest. Mark Fruin San Jose State University Mark Fruin Mark Fruin is a professor in the College of Business at San Jose State University. His recent publications include "Business Groups and Interfirm Networks" in Oxford Handbook of Business History (Oxford, 2006), and his current research is on Japanese firms in the world today and on energy efficient and low greenhouse gas emissions technologies of Japanese firms. Copyright © 2007 Society for Japanese Studies

Competition in Japan

This article examines competition in Japan and its link to postwar economic prosperity. While Japan's industrial structure and competition policy seem to indicate that competition in Japan has been less intense, the empirical evidence does not support this conclusion. The sectors in which competition was restricted prove to be those where Japan was not internationally successful. In the internationally successful sectors, internal competition in Japan was invariably fierce. While the level of competition in Japan is currently rising, economic recovery is still hindered by distortions in the competition in many industries.

The future of industrial structure in Japan and the United States of America

The future of industrial structure in Japan and the United States of America

Nepalese labour migration to Japan: from global warriors to global workers

This study of undocumented immigrant Nepalese workers in Japan analyses their ethnic history, demographics, migration strategies and work experiences. The majority belong to ethnic groups which the British designated 'martial races', whose tradition of foreign service as 'Gurkha' soldiers in the British and Indian Armies produced a culture of emigration and a remittance economy in rural Nepal. As a result, the present generation has been socialized to be familiar with international migration as an economic option, and has access to networks for its accomplishment. Japan's industrial structure and relative affluence have generated chronic shortages of workers to fill jobs shunned by Japanese in manufacturing and construction industries. This has elevated wages to levels which attract economically distressed foreign migrants such as those from Nepal. Despite the isolation and discrimination which they suffer, these Nepalese find the financial rewards to be sufficient to outweigh the hardships.

Minimizing energy consumption in industries by cascade use of waste energy

This paper discusses the regional energy saving potential by cascade use of waste heat in energy intensive industries, taking into account the actual local industrial structure in Japan. Energy flow in the industrial combinat composed of iron and steel, cement, paper and pulp and ethylene was optimized to minimize the oil consumption of steam boilers. The simulation results reveals that the local industrial structure highly influences on the energy saving potential by heat cascading. The industrial structure optimizing energy consumption was determined in consideration of spatial constraints of manufacturing plants or heat transmission loss between different plants. More than 90% reduction in oil consumption was expected by interconnection of waste heat supply and energy demand mainly between ethylene and paper and pulp industries.

新規産業の成長と産業構造展望

94年6月に通商産業大臣の諮問機関である産業構造審議会の総合部会基本問題小委員会(小委員長:辻村江太郎総合部会長)において，我が国の中長期の産業構造の展望を行うとともに，21世紀の産業構造を実現するための新たなパラダイムに立脚した産業政策を提示した報告書がとりまとめられた。本報告書は，同小委員会の中に設置された産業構造検討特別委員会(委員長:香西泰日本経済研究センタ一理事長)での検討をベースとしたものである。本報告書は以下の現状認識に基づいて検討され，取りまとめられたものである。本稿においては，その概要と産業構造の展望作業を中心に報告することとしたい。

The Destruction of the Full-Set Industrial Structure—East Asia's Tripolar Structure

Since the days of the dollar shock and the oil crises, debates over Japan's industrial structure have taken several twists and turns. During boom times, Japan's industrial prowess was ascribed to structural factors. Now, during a recession that has seen the upward spiral that had continued since the close of World War II come to an end, serious discussion has ensued on such topics as shifts in the industrial structure and the need for structural adjustments. Published in the midst of this recession, Beyond the Full-Set Industrial Structure is therefore truly a product of its times.

Effects of socioeconomic factors on secular trends in suicide in Japan, 1953–86

The effects of socioeconomic factors on secular trends in suicide rates in Japan for the periods 1953-72 and 1973-86 were investigated using twelve socioeconomic indicators. Multiple regression analysis showed that the socioeconomic indicators affecting suicide rates were not identical in the two periods. The rates in both sexes in 1953-72 were closely related to unemployment rate and the labour force but between 1973 and 1986, divorce rate and the proportion in tertiary industry were most influential. The changes reflect the socioeconomic changes in industrial structure in Japan in transition from an industrial to a service economy.

Small business in Japan: A historical perspective

Small firms have been considered to be an important element of the industrial structure in Japan since the turn of the century. In this paper the history of small business in Japan is examined. In particular, the dramatic development of the technological and managerial ability of small firms within the last two decades is analyzed. Under the regime of rapid industrial restructuring in Japan, small firms are identified as developing their own diversive management strategies, especially with respect to international trade and the implementation of information and high technology.

Industrial Location in Japan with Special Reference to the Semiconductor Industry

Semiconductor manufacturing is one of the most successful of the high-technology industries of Japan?industries which have registered exceptionally rapid growth rates during the last fifteen years. It has often been assumed that high-technology industries tend to choose provincial and peripheral locations and until recently, the evidence has shown that Japanese semiconductor manufacturers have indeed opted for locations in outer regions of the country. For various reasons to do with transport and communications, land availability, local government policy and labour supply, the southernmost island of Kyushu has emerged as a major regional concentration of memory chip assembly. But, research and development in the industry has always remained firmly centred in the capital region and current trends in automation and in production generally, seem to indicate that locations in the metropolitan prefectures will become more attractive from the viewpoint of firms seeking new sites for factory development. Meanwhile, changes in the yen-dollar exchange rate, together with pressures arising from trade friction between Japan and the United States, are conspiring to persuade many of Japan's semiconductor manufacturers to give priority to the expansion of production at locations overseas. SINCE THE MID-1970s, a significant change has been underway in the structure of Japan's manufacturing industry. During the 1960s, a period distinguished in Japan by very high rates of economic growth, the leading sectors of manufacturing, with the exception perhaps of the shipbuilding industry, belonged to two broad categories: durable consumer goods industries most of which were based on assembly line processes (motor vehicles, electrical goods such as television receivers, radios and domestic electrical appliances) and capital goods industries directly reliant on imported raw materials and fuels (iron and steel, oil refining, petrochemicals). The former of these categories has remained important?output of passenger cars, for example, rose from 5.3 million units in 1970 to 11.5 million in 1985, and the many and varied trades subsumed by Japanese statistics gatherers under the heading 'electrical machinery' have exhibited rapid expansion throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. By contrast, heavy and chemical industries, including shipbuilding, have either stagnated or contracted during the last fifteen years. Japan remains a major world producer of steel and ships, but in the context of depressed world demand for their products, both of these industries have been burdened by chronic problems of overcapacity. Oil refining and petrochemicals fell victim to the oil crises of 1973 and 1978-79, and have long since ceased to rank among Japan's growth industries. Perhaps the most striking feature of Japan's industrial structure since 1975 has been the emergence and rapid growth of a third major category of manufacturing: that of the high-technology industries. From modest beginnings about ten years ago, Japan has become a major producer, and a major source of technological innovation 'in a wide range of new knowledge-intensive industries, including micro-electronics, optical fibres, amorphous metals, new materials (such as fine industrial ceramics) and mechatronics?a term which refers to the fusion of mechanical and eleclrical

On the Quantitative Analysis of the Structure of Village Communities

The social change caused by the drastic change of the industrial structure in Japan from the latter half of 1960's to the first half of 1970's has brought local communities to a crisis. The change has been explained by the debate whether the structure of village communities has already collapsed or still remained. In this situation, it is important to intensively describe the present conditions of local communities and their subtle changes. It is also necessary to compare the community structures based on the standardized data and to analyze quantitatively the community structures at the regional and nationwide levels, in order to establish a common and objective scale.Nishida and I made use of “the agricultural community cards” (mainly of 1970) of the World census about the Agriculture and Forestry. We drew a 1500 random sample out of one hundred and forty-two thousand local communities. We calculated a mean and a variance, and using the method of the Principal Component Analysis (one of the multivariate analyses), found four components common to all the local communities. We have set up the “nationwide criterion” to easily calculate the component scores of a local community. We have also proposed the “regional criterion”. As our case study, we have employed the communities in Tsushima islands of Nagasaki prefecture.

Management and Industrial Structure in Japan

"Management and Industrial Structure in Japan." Journal of the Operational Research Society, 33(3), pp. 293–294

Management and Industrial Structure in Japan

Management and Industrial Structure in Japan