Abstract
This chapter argues, first, that to see keiretsu only as an economic organization does not provide a complete picture of the term; accordingly, it is necessary to explore the philosophical concept of keiretsu. Secondly, it argues that the concept of keiretsu is based on the principles of social solidarity that are unique to Japanese society. A third point focuses on conventional socio-economic aspects of keiretsu and develops these in terms of the conceptual matrix put forward in the earlier sections. Finally, the principles of keiretsu are explored through structural linguistics.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abegglen, J.C. and Stalk, G. (1985) Kaisha: The Japanese Corporation (New York: Basic Books).
Aoki, M. (1988) Information, Incentives, and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Aoki, M. (1990) ‘Towards an economic model of the Japanese firm’, Journal of Economic Literature, 28 (1), 1–27.
Aoki, M. (1994) ‘The Japanese firm as a system of attributes: a survey and research agenda’, in M. Aoki and R. Dore (eds) The Japanese Firm, Sources of Competitive Strength (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Asanuma, B. (1989) ‘Manufacturer-supplier relationships in Japan and the concept of relation-specific skill’, Journal of the Japanese and International Economics, 3 (1), 1–30.
Asanuma, B. (1990) ‘Nihon ni okeru meka to sapuraiya tono kankei - kankei tokushugino no gainen no chushutu to teishikika (Manufacturer-supplier relationship in Japan and the concept of relation-specific skill)’, Keizai Ronso (Economic Review), Kyoto Daigaku Keizaigaku-kai (Kyoto University Economic Society), 145(1/2), 237–40.
Benedict, R. (1967) The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd).
Bhappu, A.D. (2000) ‘Note–the Japanese family: an institutional logic for Japanese corporate networks and Japanese management’, Academy of Management Review, 25 (2), 409–15.
Bremner, B., Thornton, E. and Kunii, I.M. (1999) ‘Fall of A Keiretsu’, Business Week, 86–92.
Buckley, P.J. (2004) ‘Asian network firms: an analytical framework’, Asia Pacific Business Review, 10 (3/4), 254–71.
Chew, E. (2001) ’Keiretsu are fading away’, Automotive News Europe, 6(19), 14–31.
Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton).
Chowdhury, S.D. and Geringer, J.M. (2001) ‘Institutional ownership, strategic choices and corporate efficiency: evidence from Japan’, Journal of Management Studies, 38 (2), 271–91.
Coase, R. (1937) ‘The nature of the firm’, Economica, 4 (16), 386–405.
Cole, R.E. (1979) Work, Mobility and Participation: A Comparative study of American and Japanese Industry (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Cowling, K. and Tomlinson, P.R. (2000) ‘The Japanese crisis–a case of strategic failure?’, The Economic Journal, 110 (464), 358–81.
Dewenter, K.L. (2003) ‘The risk-sharing role of Japanese keiretsu business groups: evidence from restructuring in the 1990s’, Japan and World Economy, 15 (3), 261–74.
Dewenter, K.L., Novaes, W. and Pettway, R.H. (2001) ‘Visibility versus complexity in business groups: evidence from Japanese keiretsu’, The Journal of Business, 74 (1), 79–100.
Doi, T. (1981) The Anatomy of Dependence (Tokyo: Kodansha International).
Dore, R. (1973) British Factory, Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Dore, R. (1987) Taking Japan Seriously: A Confucian Perspective of Leading Economic Issues (London: The Athlone Press).
Dore, R. (1998) ‘Asian crisis and the future of the Japanese model’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 22 (6), 773–87.
Dore, R. (2000) Stock Market Capitalism: Welfare Capitalism Japan and Germany versus the Anglo-Saxons (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Dyer, J.H. (1996) ‘Does governance matter? Keiretsu alliances and asset specificity as sources of Japanese competitive advantage’, Organisation Science, 7 (6), 649–66.
Dyer, J.H. (1997) ‘Effective interfirm collaboration: how firms minimize transaction costs and maximize transaction value’, Strategic Management Journal, 18 (7), 535–56.
Dyer, J.H. and Singh, H. (1998) ‘The relational view: cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advance’, Academy of Management Review, 23 (4), 660–79.
Gerlach, M.L. (1992a) ‘Twilight of the keiretsu? A critical assessment’, Journal of Japanese Studies, 18 (1), 79–118.
Gerlach, M.L. (1992b) Alliance Capitalism: The Social Organisation o f Japanese Business (Berkley, CA: University of California Press).
Granovetter, M. (1992) ‘Economic institutions as social constructions: a framework for analysis’, Acta Sociologica, 35 (1), 3–11.
Granovetter, M. (1994) ‘Business groups’, in N.J. Smelsen and R. Swedberg (eds) The Handbook of Economic Sociology, 453–75 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Granovetter, M. (1999) ‘Coarse encounters and formal models: taking Gibbons seriously’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 44 (2), 158–62.
Gulati, R. (1995) ‘Does familiarity breed trust? The implications of repeated ties for contractual choice in alliances’, Academy of Management Journal, 38 (1), 85–112.
Hill, C. (1995) ‘National institutional structures, transaction cost economizing and competitive advantage: the case of Japan’, Organisation Science, 6 (1), 119–31.
Hosono, K., Tomiyama, M. and Miyagawa, T. (2004) ‘Corporate governance and research and development: evidence from Japan’, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 13 (2), 141–65.
Imai, K. (1992) ‘Japan’s corporate networks’, in H. Rosovsky and S. Kumon (eds) The Political Economy of Japan, 3 (Cultural and Social Dynamics: 198–230) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
Inoue, H. (1993) Jikasei Bunshôtokuhon (Homemade writing textbook) (Tokyo: Shin’chosha).
Japan Small Business Research Institute (2007) White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises in Japan (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry).
Jones, C., Hesterly, W.S. and Borgatti, S.P. (1997) ‘A general theory of network governance: exchange conditions and social mechanisms’, Academy of Management Review, 22 (4), 911–45.
Kato, K. and Hardy, V. (1994) Figo shôronbun no kakikata - eigo no lojikku nihongo no lojikku (How to write an English short essay - English logic Japanese logic) (Tokyo: Kodansha gendai shinsho).
Kin’daichi, H. (2002) Nihon’go: shinpan (Japanese: new edition) I and II (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten).
Koike, K. (1994) ‘Learning and incentive systems in Japanese industry’, in M. Aoki and R. Dore (eds) The Japanese Firm, Sources of Competitive Strength (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Komiya, R. (1990) The Japanese Economy: Trade, Industry, and Government (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press).
Lai, G.M.-H. (1999) ‘Keiretsu and keiretsu business groups’, Journal of World Business, 34(4), 423–48.
Lamming, R. (2000) ‘Japanese supply chain relationships in recession’, Long Range Planning, 33 (6), 757–79.
Lebra Sugiyama, T. (1992) Japanese Social Organization (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press).
Lebra Sugiyama, T. and Lebra, W.P. (1986) Japanese Culture and Behavior (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press).
Markus, H.R. and Kitayama, S. (1991) ‘Culture and the self: implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation’, Psychological Review, 98 (2), 224–53.
McGuire, J. and Dow, S. (2003) ‘The persistence and implications of Japanese keiretsu organisation’, Journal of International Business Studies, 34 (4), 374–88.
Miwa, Y. and Ramseyer, J.M. (2002) ‘The fable of the keiretsu’, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 11 (2), 169–224.
Morita, H. and Nakahara, H. (2004) ‘Impacts of the information-technology revolution on Japanese manufacturer-supplier relationships’, Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 18 (3), 390–415.
Nakamura, T. and Odaka, K. (2003) Volume 3: Economic History of Japan 1914–1955 - A Dual Structure (London: Oxford University Press).
Nakane, C. (1973) Japanese Society (Harmondsworth: Pengu in Books).
Nooteboom, B. (1999) ‘Voice and exit-based forms of corporate control: Anglo-American, European and Japanese’, Journal of Economic Issues, 33 (4), 845–60.
Nooteboom, B. (2000) ‘Network interactions and mutual dependence: a test in the car industry’, Industry and Innovation, 7 (1), 117–45.
North, D.C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
North, D.C. (1991) ‘Institutions’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5 (1), 97–112.
Ohno, S. (1999) Nihongo ren’shū chō (Practice book of Japanese language) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten).
Oliver, C. (1997) ‘Sustainable competitive advantage: combining institutional and resource-based views’, Strategic Management journal, 18 (9), 697–713.
Orrù, M., Hamilton, G.G. and Suzuki, M. (1989) ‘Patterns of inter-firm control in Japanese business’, Organization Studies, 10 (4), 549–74.
Osborn, R.N. and Hagedoorn, J. (1997) ‘The institutionalization and evolutionary dynamics of inter-organisational alliances and networks’, Academy of Management Journal, 40 (2), 261–78.
Peng, M.W. (2002) ‘Cultures, institutions, and strategic choices: toward an institutional perspective on business strategy’, in M.J. Gannon and K.L. Newman (eds) The Blackwell Handbook of Cross-Cultural Management, 52–66 (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publisher Ltd).
Rohlen, T.P. (1974) For Harmony and Strength: Japanese White-collar Organization in Anthropological Perspective (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Rugman, A.M. (2003) ‘Regional strategy and the demise of globalization’, Journal of International Management, 9 (4), 409–17.
Rugman, A.M. (2005) ‘A further comment on the myth of globalization’, Journal of International Management, 11 (3), 441–5.
Rugman, A.M. and Collinson, S. (2004) ‘The regional nature of the world’s automotive sector’, European Management Journal, 22 (5), 471–82.
Sako, M. (1992) Price, Quality and Trust: Inter-firm Relations in Britain and Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Sapir, E. (1949) Culture, Language and Personality (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press).
Saussure, F. (1916) Cours de Linguistique Générale (Paris: Payot).
Saussure, F. (1983) Course in General Linguistics (translated and annotated by Roy Harris) (London: Duckworth).
Scott, W.R. (1995) Institutions and Organisations (Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications).
Simon, H.A. and March, J.G. (1993) ‘Organisation Revisited’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 2 (3), 299–316.
Solis, M. (2003) ‘On the myth of the keiretsu network: Japanese electronics in North America’, Business and Politics, 5 (3), 303–33.
Sugimoto, Y. (1998) An Introduction to Japanese Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Suzuki, T. (1984) Words in Context: A Japanese Perspective on Language and Culture (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International).
Tallman, S.B. (1991) ‘Strategic management models and resource-based strategies among MNEs in a host market’, Strategic Management Journal, 12 (1), 69–83.
The Economist (25 November 2000) ‘Regrouping’, The Economist, 74.
Vogel, E.F. (1975) Modern Japanese Organization and Decision-Making (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Watanabe, Y. (1992) ‘Kokusaika no shinten to kokunai chiikikan bungyokozo no shintenkai (New developments in internationalization and the domestic inter-district division of labour)’, Shoko kin yu, July, 4–22.
Whittaker, D.H. and Kurosawa, Y. (1998) ‘Japan’s crisis: evolution and implications’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 22 (6), 761–71.
Whorf, B.L. (1952) ‘Language, mind, and reality’, Technology Review 9 (3), 167–88.
Williamson, O.E. (1991) ‘Calculativeness, trust and economic organisation’, Journal of Law and Economics, 26 (3), 453–86.
Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990) The Machine That Changed the World (New York: Rowson Associates and Macmillan Publishing Company).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2011 Tomoko Oikawa
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Oikawa, T. (2011). Economic Organization and Social Solidarity: Keiretsu as a Local/Global Concept. In: Hutson, E., Sinkovics, R.R., Berrill, J. (eds) Firm-Level Internationalization, Regionalism and Globalization. The Academy of International Business. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305106_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305106_21
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-33118-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-30510-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Business & Management CollectionBusiness and Management (R0)