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A number of studies have considered the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on corporate productivity, including the relationship of ICT to corporate structure and business processes. Comparatively less attention, however, has been directed toward the relationship between corporate productivity and the various stages of ICT application development; to date, the only work in this direction has been the proposal of some conceptual frameworks for the development stages of ICT, and no empirical studies have been conducted. In this paper, using individual data from the 2006 Information and Communication Technology Survey conducted by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, we use estimated production functions to quantify how productivity changes with the stages of ICT development. When we classify ICT applications into four stages of sophistication- nonperforming ICT assets, section- wide system applications, company- wide system applications, and inter- corporate system applications-we find that the impact of ICT on productivity increases with each successive stage of sophistication. For instance, when we use a production function that assesses the impact of the ICT development stage on Total Factor Productivity (TFP), we find that companies that have developed company- wide system applications exhibit added-value productivity some 1.07-fold higher than companies that have only progressed as far as the development of section- wide system applications. We also find that companies that have developed inter- corporate system applications exhibit added-value productivity some 1.11-fold higher than companies with only company- wide system applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) growth rates in the electric power industry for the United States, Japan, and Korea. In this paper, the conventional Divisia index number approach and two cost function approaches are used to assess TFP growth rates during the 1972-1996 period. The TFP growth rates in the United States, where regulatory reform has been progressing gradually since 1978, did not show much difference from those in Japan, and were considerably lower than those achieved by Korea, where little reform has taken place. Decomposition analysis based on the total cost function shows that the major sources of TFP growth were the scale effect in Japan, the capacity utilization effect and the scale effect in Korea, and technical change in the United States. Since the mid-80s, the increases in TFP growth were due to improvements in the capacity utilization effect in all three countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect on product development of project scope: the extent to which a new product is based on unique parts developed in-house. Using data from a larger study of product development in the world auto industry, the paper presents evidence on the impact of scope on lead time and engineering productivity. Studies of the automotive supplier industry suggest that very different structures and relationships exist in Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Yet there has been little study of the impact of these differences on development performance. Further, little is known about the effects of different parts strategies (i.e. unique versus common or carryover parts) on development. The evidence presented here suggests that project scope differs significantly in the industry, even for comparable products. These differences in strategy, in turn, explain an important part of differences in performance. In particular, it appears that a distinctive approach to scope among Japanese firms--high levels of unique parts, intensive supplier involvement in engineering--accounts for a significant fraction of their advantage in lead time and cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I examine the role of patent stock, citation stock and objection stock in the analysis of R&D productivity and the exact interrelationships between those stocks by using new data on 100 large Japanese companies. I find, first, that citation and objection stock represent the knowledge stock of the company well, whereas patent stock itself is an ineffective proxy for the knowledge stock. Objection stock seems to be the best proxy for the knowledge stock. Second, citation and objection stocks are effective in playing the role of control factors for successful R&D stock, whereas patent stock is only effective if lags in R&D stock are incorporated. Third, citation and objection stocks are good proxies for controlling for the quality of patent stock. Citation stock seems to be the best variable for controlling for R&D stock and patent stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of new technology on plant-level productivity in the Japanese steel industry during the 1950's and 1960's. We estimate the production function, considering the differences in technology between the refining furnaces owned by a plant. We find that a more productive plant was likely to adopt the new technology and that the adoption would be expected to occur immediately following the peak of the productivity level achieved with the old technology. The adoption of the new technology primarily accounted not only for the industry's productivity slowdown but also for the industry's remarkable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for quantitatively evaluating the macroeconomic effects of corporate restructuring and applies that framework to Japan. Using firm- level financial statement data, this paper estimates total factor productivity of individual Japanese finns. Given the estimated distribution of productivity across finns, this paper simulates the effect of optimal restructuring, that is, reallocation of resources from less-productive firms to more-productive ones, on the dynamic path of aggregate output In a benchmark case, aggregate output declines by 0.8 percent in the year of restructuring, but converges to a level 1.6 percent above its initial level in the medium term. The present value of net output gains from restructuring over 20 years amounts to 15 percent of the initial output under a 5 percent discount rate, suggesting that the benefits of restructuring may exceed the costs. With different assumptions, the present value of net output gains could range between 13 percent and 31 percent of the initial output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimated the production function of new Japanese firms using cross-sectional data from the "Survey on Business Startups in Japan" in 1998, and investigated whether the total factor productivity of new firms is affected by the human capital and gender of entrepreneurs. Empirical results show decreasing returns to scale of production, which verifies the assumption of production functions in many previous studies on entrepreneur ship. Further, it is shown that the entrepreneur' s age has a significantly negative effect on productivity, and the negative effect increases after 60 years of age.

Economists J.R. Norsworthy and David H. Malmquist have presented interesting comparisons of productivity growth in the Japanese and the U.S. manufacturing sectors. Their paper starts with the discussion of whether the conventional value-added or gross national product (GNP) measurement of output is an appropriate framework for productivity analysis. Some confusion frequently arises as to whether a production function should he structured on the basis of gross output or value-added output. Separability is a pivotal concept in the analysis of production structures, especially in relation to the existence of a real value-added aggregate. It is well known that there are two types of separability, which pertain to the existence of a real value-added function: weak separability and strong partial separability. The practical advantage of distinguishing these two different forum of separability is that the double-deflation method in conventional GNP accounting is justified only when strong partial separability holds.

It has been suggested that market structure will have an impact on within-industry differentials in efficiency, or cost disadvantages of small firms. To test this hypothesis, this paper examines the effects of market structure on the productivity (relative to industry productivity) of small manufacturing firms in Japan. The results show that market structure elements such as concentration and capital requirements work to the disadvantage of small-firm efficiency. The findings provide support for the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on local agglomeration effects on productivity, in which the spatial size-distribution of firms is taken into consideration. The data set is comprised of four-digit firm level data on Japanese manufactures for 2005. The estimation by use of firm data enables us to identify various agglomeration effects. The estimation model is based upon the stochastic frontier (labour) production function approach, in which we examine what type of local agglomeration contributes to improve productive efficiency. The estimation results suggest that for most light industries agglomeration of various sizes of firms is important for productivity rather than the concentration of uniform small size firms. Resumen Este estudio se centra en efectos de aglomeración local sobre la productividad, en los que se tiene en cuenta la distribución del tamaño de las empresas de modo espacial. El conjunto de datos se compone de empresas clasificadas a nivel de cuatro dígitos para manufacturas japonesas en 2005. La estimación mediante el uso de datos de empresas nos permite identificar varios efectos de aglomeración. El modelo estimado está basado en el enfoque de frontera estocástica de la función de producción (mano de obra), en el que examinamos qué tipo de aglomeración local contribuye a mejorar la eficiencia productiva. Los resultados de la estimación sugieren que para la mayoría de la industria ligera la aglomeración de empresas de tamaños diferentes es importante para la productividad, en mayor medida que una concentración de empresas de tamaño pequeño y uniforme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the change in productivity and environmental efficiency of agriculture for nine East Asian countries for the time period from 2002 to 2010. Data were collected and then analysed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) approaches, including Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index and slacks-based measure (SBM) with the consideration of undesirable outputs. The results showed that there existed relatively large differences in productivity growth and environmental performance in the agricultural sector between countries in the sample. Overall, the countries examined in the present study experienced a decline in TFP due to decreases in technical efficiency. Taiwan, Japan, and Korea were found to show growths in productivity and fully efficient environmental performances throughout the study period, while Thailand was identified as having the lowest environmental efficiency score. Therefore, agriculture production and operation models in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea could serve as good references for the other six countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the decade-long economic slump in Japan during the 1990s. In the neoclassical growth framework, a fall in total factor productivity growth is expected to slow down the economy's long-term growth. This paper's findings based on the Malmquist index show that Japan's productivity growth rate in the 1990s is not only historically low but also lags considerably behind the contemporaneous growth rates in other OECD nations. Building upon the Japanese experience, this paper considers policy responses to the current global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on Japan's approach to industrial innovations in light of the success of Japanese car company Toyota in 2005. Operations of basic scientific research; Industrial efficiency; Environmental innovations; Comparison of Toyota with its counterparts in the U.S.; Toyota's approach to science, technology and innovation.

The literature on JIT production suggests a causal link between work-in-process inventory and manufacturing productivity. Such a connection has been described in numerous case studies but never tested statistically. This paper uses historical data for 52 Japanese automotive companies to evaluate the inventory-productivity relationship. We find that firms increased their productivity rank during periods of substantial inventory reduction. More detailed tests suggest that inventory reductions stimulated gains in productivity: On average, each 10% reduction in inventory led to about a 1% gain in labor productivity, with a lag of about one year. Such effects were more immediate for Toyota affiliates, but undetectable for close suppliers of Nissan. These findings imply that inventory reduction served as an important driver of process improvement for many Japanese automotive companies, although some firms emphasized other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the impact of oligopolies on productivity and market structure in Japan. It is commonly believed that increasing competition amongst firms contributes positively to national welfare. However, under oligopoly with uneven technologies, elimination of minor firms improves average efficiency of production in the industry, though at the same time it causes a more oligopolistic market structure. This paper will show that the improvement in production efficiency may well exceed diseconomies of changes in market structure. In this model, an uneven technical level amongst firms provides the key ingredient. In order to highlight the difference in the mechanisms, existence of fixed cost is ignored. It is commonly believed that harder competition among firms is beneficial to the country. Conversely, it is said that exit of minor firms and policies that impair them, strengthen the oligopoly position of major firms and consequently decrease national welfare. In this paper, it is shown that by eliminating or impairing minor firms a government can actually increase welfare. This happens primarily because elimination of a less efficient firm, shifts production from it to more efficient ones and thus increases total profits.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the early 1980s, there has been a mounting debate in industry literature and in U.S. government-sponsored reports over the relative performance of software developers in Japan versus those in the United States. This literature is somewhat divided between assertions of Japanese or U.S. superiority in this technology, although many observers in the popular business press continue to insist that the U.S. maintains an overwhelming lead in this technology. However, both sides of the debate have offered evidence that, to date, has been primarily qualitative or based on one or two cases. This paper contributes to the debate in two ways. First, it offers a comprehensive literature review that analyzes existing comparisons of Japanese and U.S. practice in software development and summarizes the major proposed differences in performance. Second, it presents the first set of quantitative data collected from a statistically comparable sample of 24 U.S. and 16 Japanese software-development projects, and uses these data to test propositions from the literature. The analyses indicate that Japanese software projects perform at least as well as their U.S. counterparts in basic measures of productivity, quality (defects), and reuse of software code. The data also make it possible to offer models that explain some of the differences in productivity and quality among projects in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the success of the strategic management of business enterprises in Japan, compared to that of the United States which has suffered losses due to the decrease of industrial productivity and the increase of competition in the global markets. A comparison of the manufacturing processes in Japan and the United States to determine the effect of management strategies. A number of the industries and the leadership of the United States has been successfully challenged by Japan.

This article explores international productivity differences in manufacturing industries across Germany, Japan and the U.S. and offers an explanation for them. The authors develop an extension and a refinement of the industry-of-origin method to provide new measures of productivity in nine industries located in the three countries. Then they combine publicly available data with the industry knowledge and assessments by experts within McKinsey & Co. to determine the reasons for productivity differences. The nature of the explanation takes place at two levels, the first of which is at the production process level. They look for differences in the use of capital, technology and skills--how the variables that enter the production function differ across countries--and the synthesis of the industry results shows that physical capital and embodied technology are important factors that partially account for differences in labor productivity.

This paper explores the usage of various industrial policy tools in Japan. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, we find that a disproportionate amount of Japanese targeting occurred in low growth sectors and sectors with decreasing returns to scale. In addition, we find no evidence that productivity was enhanced as a result of industrial policy measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents labor statistics data approximating U.S. concepts for the U.S. Canada, Australia, Japan and six European countries. The labor force statistics published by other countries are not, in most cases, comparable to U.S. concepts. Therefore, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), adjusted the figures for selected countries, for all known major definitional differences, to the extent that data to prepare adjustments are made available. Data for the U.S. relate to the population 16 years of age and older. In the labor force participation rates and employment-population ratios, the denominator is the civilian noninstitutionalized working age population, except that the institutionalized working age population is included in Japan and Germany. In some countries, persons on layoff are classified as employed due to their strong job attachment. Canada and European countries classify passive jobseekers as unemployed. BLS constructed the comparative indexes from three basic aggregate measures--output, total labor hours, and total compensation. However, the output series for Japan prior to 1970 is an index of industrial production, and the national accounts measures for Great Britain are essentially identical to their indexes of industrial production.

Since the early 1990s, there have been larger and increasing labor productivity differences across industries in Japan. More specifically, a clear pattern of sigma and beta divergence across industries is observed. To shed light on these stylized facts, we first evaluate the input–output structure of Japan through the lens of a community-detection algorithm from network theory. Results from this analysis suggest the existence of two input–output network structures: a densely-connected group of industries (a stationary community), whose members remain in it throughout the period; and a group of industries (a transitional community) whose members do not belong to this first group. Next, we re-evaluate the industrial divergence pattern of Japan in the context of each network structure. Results suggest that divergence is mostly driven by the transitional community. Interestingly, since 2007, a pattern of sigma convergence started to re-appear only in the stationary community. We conclude suggesting that industrial divergence and instability in community membership are not necessarily indicative of low productivity performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Japanese style of management and Training Within Industries (TWI) programs in the United States. Over ten million Japanese managers, supervisors and workers are graduates of the TWI programs, which were installed in Japan by the occupation authorities after World War II. Many management practices thought of as "Japanese" can trace their roots to TWI. The TWI programs in the United States were designed to play a major role in boosting industrial production to the levels required to win World War II. Unlike its success story in Japan, the TWI programs' usage dropped off to the point where they are hardly even known in the United States.

This article examines and compares the manufacturing systems of commercial products in the U.S. and abroad. The U.S. has been placed at a competitive disadvantage to Japan as it pertains to the quality of its automobiles, consumer electronics, farm equipment, and machine tools. Discussed are Japanese versus American automakers. Japan's economic advantages are that they can afford to pay their workers less money and the workers are able to produce automobiles in a faster amount of time. The U.S. cars are priced higher and are of poorer quality.

The article analyzes the productivity system methods popular among Japanese corporations and considers their applicability to United States companies. The need for U.S. companies to improve their productivity is discussed. Some idiosyncrasies of the Japanese approach to business are noted, including close ties between government and business, in-house labor unions and a commitment to lifetime job security. Examples of strategies used and problems faced by Japanese firms operating in the United States are presented and the increase in adoption of Japanese-style quality control circles among U.S. companies is noted.

Ouchi's Theory Z prescribes how employees should be motivated for increased productivity. Based on the theoretical work of Emile Durkheim, it views the modern large corporation as a communal alternative to the shortcomings of other institutions in industrial mass society. Ouchi's assertion that Japan is the industrial society in which Theory Z has flourished receives limited support from research findings. Moreover, Ouchi's grounding of the theory in humanistic management seem unwarranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's 'miracle' is an ongoing, evolving one. A long with the explosive rise of Japan's economic fortunes the number of theories about the business strategy of Japan's most successful firms, her Kaisha, is also exploding. The focus here is not on individual building- block strategic patterns but on: (1) linkages between the patterns, and (2) how (and why) some patterns may be combined to create even greater advantage. At the level of the firm a few basic themes are discussed and roughly modeled as a sequence, a 'pattern of patterns'. It is argued that (in retrospect) several patterns of Japanese strategy have been (to differing degrees in different firms) parts of a larger, synergistic, internally logical, and powerful synthesis. The point is that additional strategic advantages can emerge for firms which think about how to link together strategic patterns. Evidence is offered illustrating these arguments and demonstrating one way Japanese patterns combine to form an integrated strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results are reported of a questionnaire survey of corporate managerial approaches to productivity. The sample comprised 146 large industrial companies, of which 96 were American, 25 British and 25 Japanese. Responses from the total sample were used to construct a managerial interpretation of productivity. A comparison was then conducted among the three national samples. Although productivity improvement was reported as being a matter of significant corporate concern in all three countries, greater priority was expressed by the British and Japanese than by the American managers. The British and American managerial approaches to productivity appear to be broadly similar, but with the exception that the British focus much more single-mindedly on labour productivity as the central issue. The Japanese responses convey a proactive, long-term approach to the management of productivity, with research and innovation being accorded to pre-eminent role. The implications of the findings are briefly discussed and directions for further research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Quadrads" (double dyads) of interviews, each conducted with a pair of marketing executives at a Japanese vendor firm and a pair of purchasing executives at a Japanese customer firm, provided data on corporate culture, customer orientation, innovativeness, and market performance. Business performance (relative profitability, relative size, relative growth rate, and relative share of market) was correlated positively with the customer's evaluation of the supplier's customer orientation, but the supplier's own assessment of customer orientation did not correspond well to that of the customer. Japanese companies with corporate cultures stressing competitiveness (markets) and entrepreneurship (adhocracies) outperformed those dominated by internal cohesiveness (clans) or by rules (hierarchies). Successful market innovation also improved performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Japanese government initiated a series of regulatory reforms in the mid-1990s. The Japanese urban gas industry consists of various sized private and non-private firms. Numerous previous studies find that deregulation leads to productivity improvements. We extend the literature by analyzing deregulation, privatization, and other aspects of a regulated industry using unique firm level data. This study measures productivity to evaluate the effect of the deregulation reform. Using data from 205 firms from 1993 to 2004, we find that the deregulation effect differs depending on firm size. Competitive pressure contributes to advanced productivity. The deregulation of gas sales to commercial customers is the most important factor for advancing productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of offshoring on productivity using firm-level data for the Japanese manufacturing industries during the period 1994-2000. We find that intrafirm offshoring, that is, sourcing of intermediate inputs to foreign affiliates within a particular multinational firm, has generally a positive effect on productivity of the offshoring firm, while arm's-length offshoring, that is, sourcing to unaffiliated foreign firms, does not have such an effect. In addition, the impact of arm's-length offshoring is negative for nonmultinationals and nonexporters but nonnegative for multinationals and exporters. These results suggest that the costs of searching foreign firms suitable for offshoring are nonnegligible. ( JEL F14, L23) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the impact of industry characteristics such as research and development, capital intensity and labor productivity on the export performance of U.S., Japanese and German firms. The study utilizes ordinary least squares multiple regression and samples of the top 1000 publicly listed manufacturing companies by those countries from 2001 to 2005 in which samples were matched on the basis of industry type. Findings, as well as the implications of the study are cited.

In the early 1990s, research began to show that the Japanese production theory, which espouses reduction of machine setup time as a sure way to improve production performance, may be limited. Specifically, it was found that reduction in mean setup times without any change in variance can, paradoxically, increase waiting time and work in process (WIP) in a cyclic production system. Setup time variance was demonstrated to play a central role because of the paradoxes it produced with the resulting harm to effective capacity. Subsequently, explicit formulas were derived for determining whether adding fixed forced idle time (but holding variance constant) would reduce waiting time and, if so, the optimal amount of idle time to add. However, research to date has offered little guidance to reduce setup time variance to improve waiting time. We show that a greater reduction is achievable by adding a variable idle time that is a nonincreasing function of setup time and thereby reduce the combined setup time variance. We provide explicit procedures for finding the optimal variable idle time as a function of setup time when the latter follows any finite discrete distribution. We also show how to implement our policy and show that our approach can improve waiting time even when other currently known approaches cannot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines various aspects of the total factor productivity (TFP) of small and medium enterprises (SME) in Japan. Estimation of TFP; Evaluation of the technological progress of SME from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s; Analysis of the determinants of technological progress.

Presents a study which analyzed a Japanese nonunion transplant in the United States that has manufactured the same car component as its mother unionized plant in Japan since 1990, using the same transfer machine systems and identical production parts. Research on Japanese transplants in North America; Differences in the production line performance between the transplant and the mother plant; Performance of American production workers in the transplant and the mother plant.

By using a large new enterprise-level data set, and evidence drawn from case studies, we show that Japanese employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are a pervasive and neglected institution. In 1988, more than 90% of all firms listed on Japanese stock markets had an ESOP, and close to 50% of the labour force in firms with ESOPs participated in the plan. Micro data and a production function framework are used to examine the effects on business performance of ESOPs. On average, the net effect of introducing an ESOP is to increase productivity by almost 7%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on a study regarding the productivity change and labor absorption in the Japanese cotton textile industry between 1891 and 1935. Tables I and II may be used to discuss the general relationship between productivity improvement and labor absorption. The results here confirm that the conventional production surface can be pushed and squeezed in many directions. Between 1891 and 1910 productivity improvement went hand in hand with accelerated labor absorption. Table III suggests that an increase in the length of shifts will cause a decline in the efficiency of a unit of machinery and a unit of labor, an increase in the elasticity of substitution, and a decline in the returns to scale. Throughout, the output-decreasing consequences of a decline in the efficiency of a unit of machinery, a decline in the efficiency of a unit of labor, and a decrease in the returns to scale overshadow the output-increasing effect of an increase in the elasticity of substitution.

In The Machine that Changed the World, the best-selling management book which made the concept of lean production famous, teams are assigned a crucial role. They "emerge as the heart of the lean factory"[l, p. 9] and are called a "hallmark" of lean production[l, backflap]. The book's central message that the performance gap between Japanese and Western car producers needed to be closed by the latter adopting lean production did not go lost. In Europe, the publicity around the promising concept seems to have functioned as a catalyst for the diffusion of teamwork. Companies such as Fiat, Mercedes-Benz, NedCar, Opel, Renault and Volvo are now known to use teams, albeit in various forms and to various degrees. There is something ironical in this process. Teams have been promoted in Europe for more than 30 years because of their beneficial effects on organizational effectiveness and the quality of working life. These sociotechnically-informed designers were among the strongest advocates. Yet, until shortly before 1990, teams seem to have failed to break through. Riding the waves of lean production's popularity, however, the picture in the 1990s looks much different. But although teams are mentioned as an important explanation for lean production's alleged superior productivity. The Machine that Changed the World is rather ambiguous about the question as to what these teams look like. Hence, questions abound. Are sociotechnical and lean teams identical work forms, or does their similarity stop with their names? To what extent are they compatible? Should one form be favoured over the other, or can both be applied, yet in different situations? In an attempt to answer such questions, this article describes and compares both forms of team in general terms. It concludes that both forms differ with respect to some key characteristics. Furthermore, it is argued that the indigenously Japanese team form is only applicable in rather special circumstances; in other circumstances, a broader approach to teams is necessary. Next, a model for the development of such alternative teams is described and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses some challenges faced by the economy of Japan after World War II and the reasons for its present growth and stability. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 and at least roughly for the subsequent four years her economy was in an extremely abnormal condition. Abnormalities consisted of the process of rehabilitation from the nadir of defeat in a major war-the nadir characterized by the loss of one-fourth of the reproducible physical wealth and by the extreme slump in productive activities, less than 20 per cent in industrial production as a whole, and about 60 per cent in agricultural production, both compared with the 1934-36 averages. The inflation of substantial magnitude, continuing unmitigated until the first quarter of 1949, with an accompanying phenomenon of widespread black and gray market prices in both consumers' and producers' goods. The overriding influence of non-economic policy decisions by the occupation authorities on the economic life of the country-the policy decisions, which were at first oriented towards restricting the tempo of recovery and then in early 1948 were rather abruptly turned in the opposite direction. However, after 1951-54, a shift in structure, high investment and generation of sufficient demand led to the economic growth of Japan.

This article focuses on the changes in the industrial sector in Japan during the period from 1930 to 1951. Japanese industry has undergone major structural changes during the period from 1930 to 1951. These changes are mainly due to the Second World War, and the shifts in the whole world economy during this period. The article focuses primarily on the machinery, chemical, and textile industries. These industries employ over half the workers in Japanese manufacturing industries. The prewar period of industrial development in Japan was marked by growth of the chemical and machinery industries at the expense of the lighter industries. Fabricated basic materials declined from 36 to 27 percent of all Japanese exports during the period from 1930 to 1936, while manufactured products increased from 47 to 58 percent. The output of machinery and chemicals continued to increase, although textile production was reduced to decrease nonmilitary imports. The difficulty of importing raw materials and the diversion of the chemical industry from fertilizers to explosives resulted in a 50 percent decrease in chemical output.

We analyze the dynamic interaction of Japan's total factor productivity, gross domestic product (GDP) domestic and foreign private and public research and development (R&D) in vector-error-correction models (VECMs) for Japan with data from 1963–2017. Extensive testing leads to favoring a model with five cointegrating equations for the six variables. Analysis of effects of permanent policy changes shows that (i) additional public R&D encourages private R&D and total factor productivity (TFP), and has higher internal rates of return than private R&D changes and therefore could speed up Japan's growth; (ii) public R&D changes have a statistically significant positive permanent effect on foreign private R&D stocks and a transitional effect on foreign public R&D stocks; (iii) private R&D changes have a statistically significant positive permanent effect on foreign public R&D stocks and a transitional effect on foreign private R&D stocks; (iv) after a temporary GDP change, public R&D is counter-cyclical in the short and medium run and private R&D is pro-cyclical. Empirical results are related to the parameters of a VES (variable elasticity of substitution) function for TFP production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]