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Co-evolution of Firm Strategies and Institutional Setting in Firm-based Late Industrialization — The Case of the Japanese Commercial Aircraft Industry

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Abstract

This paper examines the reciprocal evolutionary changes that occur through mutual interactions between firm strategies and the institutional setting in which the firms are embedded, in a context of firm-based late industrialization (FLI). More specifically, it delineates how such mutual interactions create a “micro-macro loop” and the co-evolutionary structure between (micro-level) firm strategies and (meso/macro-level) institutional setting. We elaborate the concept of a micro-macro loop by identifying the specific aspects in which firm strategies and institutional setting mutually interact in the context of firm-based late industrialization. By focusing on those specific aspects of the micro-macro loop, we then delineate the co-evolution of those two variables during the postwar development of the Japanese commercial aircraft industry. Finally, the empirical part of the paper describes how such a co-evolutionary structure has fostered and/or hindered the FLI of the postwar Japanese commercial aircraft industry.

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Correspondence to Seishi Kimura.

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Kimura, S. Co-evolution of Firm Strategies and Institutional Setting in Firm-based Late Industrialization — The Case of the Japanese Commercial Aircraft Industry. Evolut Inst Econ Rev 3, 109–135 (2006). https://doi.org/10.14441/eier.3.109

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