| NOTA |
(★)(Despite their far-reaching consequences --economic and political, domestic and international-- surprisingly little is understood about the patterns of interaction that link Japanese companies. Situated between the internal managerial practices of the Japanese firm and the national and international forces that define Japan´s macroeconomy and industrial policies, intercorporate relations in the contemporary Japanese economy are marked by an elaborate structure of institutional arrangements that enmesh its primary decision-making units in complex networks of cooperation and competition. Included here are trade associations among firms in the same industries, large-scale business associations that cut across industries, special public corporations jointly invested in and staffed by private companies and state agencies, and overlapping sets of industrial, commercial, and financial alliances. These mediating institutions have in turn shaped and defined the basic characteristics of Japanese market structure and corporate enterprise.／ This is a study of perhaps the most distinctive of these institutions, the intercorporate alliance. There is a strong predilection for firms in Japan to cluster themselves into coherent groupings of affiliated companies extending across a broad spectrum of markets : with banks and insurance firms in the capital market, with ´soogoo shoosha (general trading companies)´ in primary goods markets, with subcontractors in component parts markets, and with competitors in new technology development. This pattern is clearest when the clusters have been institutionalized into identifiable ´keiretsu´, or enterprise groups, which include both the modern descendants of the prewar ´zaibatsu (family-centered holding companies, such as Mitsubishi and Sumitomo)´ and elaborate chains of suppliers and distributors dependent on large manufacturing concerns (such as the Toyota and Hitachi groups). As is demonstrated at various points throughout this study, however, intercorporate alliances extend far beyond the most formalized groupings and, in fact, pervade much of the Japanese economy.／ Understanding how these networks of cooperation operate and the functions they serve has become increasingly important as discussions have moved beyond the realm of academic debates to those of publicpolicy. The keiretsu and other patterns of intercorporate relationships are now at the center of both criticism and admiration by foreign observers. On the one hand, they are attacked as a significant structural barrier for newcomers in the Japanese market. With the continuation of bilateral trade imbalances even after the dramatic rise in the value of the yen beginning in 1985, preferential trading among Japanese firms is seen by U.S. negotiators as a source of market exclusion that continues to operate even after formal barriers imposed by the Japanese government have been torn down.／ Perhaps the following example best illustrate this. I observed in my company rounds an ongoing competition that I took to calling ´the beer wars.´ When I was invited to the company lounge for an after-hours beer at one of the companies where I was interviewing, the brand was invariably that of the group brewery --Asahi at Sumitomo, Kirin at Mitsubishi, or Sapporo at Fuji. Several managers commented that they always ordered their group brand when they were out in public and drank their personal favorite only at home. Thus did intergroup rivalries filter down to the day-to-day level of Japan´s corporate managers, making evident the intensely localized way in which these rivalries are sometimes manifest.／ This competition has a history going back decades. The first group affiliate was Kirin Brewery, which had been a prewar member of the Mitsubishi zaibatsu. (Even today, one can only find Kirin beer at one´s local Meiji-ya, a supermarket chain with a long history of relationships with Kirin and the Mitsubishi group.) In the 1960s, Sapporo began cultivating closer relationships with the Fuji group, so when Sapporo held its ninetieth anniversary in 1966 it used the Fuji Bank headquarters. All core Fuji group companies at the time were invited and the Fuji Bank president opened the ceremonies with a toast, saying, ´From now on let´s celebrate the end of the year with Sapporo Beer´. Sapporo the following year became a charter member of the Fuji group´s newly formed presidents´ council, the Fuyo-kai. Similarly, Asahi Breweries began moving toward the Sumitomo group in the 1960s, and these relationships became considerably closer in the 1970s as a result of Sumitomo´s rescue of Asahi from various financial troubles. In response to these shifts, Japan´s fourth and last-place brewery, Suntory, has been over the past decade in the process of developing closer ties with the Sanwa group. The comments by the president of Sanwa Bank a number of years ago are worth quoting, as they make evident the importance of business reciprocity in alliance relationships :／ As part of our good partnership policy, our bank has initiated a highly successful campaign to promote sales of Suntory beer and whiskeys among Sanwa group member companies. Suntory´s shares of the market have increased significantly in the areas where our bank´s offices are located. My favorite restaurants also have come to always stock Suntory beer and whiskeys. Many of Sanwa group companies, moreover, have switched to Suntory beer and whiskeys as a result of our ´Drink Suntory´ campaigns. The rise in Suntory´s share of the domestic beer market in spite of the exceptionally unfavorable weather conditions this summer can largely be accounted for by our campaigns. Suntory, on its part, urged its employees to deposit their summer allowances with Sanwa Bank and the campaign aldo proved to be a big success. This type of mutually beneficial accommodation and exchange of territories, managerial know-how and clients is what we call good partnership, a true way of attaining maximum co-prosperity. [Quoted in the Oriental Economist, September 1982]／[from ´INTRODUCTION´] ▼CONTENTS／ 1.Overview／ 2.Rethinking Market Capitalism／ 3.The Organization of Japanese Business Networks／ 4.The Basic Form and Structure of the Keiretsu／ 5.Patterns of Alliance Formation／ 6.New Venture Development and Technological Innovation in Japan／ 7.The Japanese Firm in Context／ 8.Alliance Capitalism and the Japanese Economy／) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
印刷用ページ