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This introduction to the special issue celebrates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Sugimori et al. (Sugimori, Y., Kusunoki, K., Cho, F. and Uchikawa, S., Toyota production system and Kanban system: materialisation of just-in-time and respect-for-human system. Int. J. Prod. Res., 1977, 15(6), 553-564), the first extensive description of the Toyota Production System (TPS) to be published in English. After some initial discussion of the TPS, this article reviews three important issues regarding the context of the original paper: the West's growing interest in Japanese manufacturing; the preoccupation with information technology as the future of production; and, concerns with job design and motivation. The Sugimori paper is then analysed in these terms, focusing on the technical and human elements of the TPS. The article closes with an introduction to the other papers in the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks at the state of collaboration in scientific research between universities and industries in Japan by measuring the level of coauthorship of academic publications. The analysis is based on data retrieved from the databases of the National Citation Report for Japan, which was produced by Thomson Scientific (ISI) and included papers published from 1981 to 2003, and the Citation Database for Japanese Papers, which was produced by the National Institute of Informatics, Japan, and included papers published from 1995 to 2004. It is revealed that there is a large 'perception gap' between industries and universities concerning their collaborations. The situation, trends and characteristics of industry-university collaborations are investigated and discussed from international and national perspectives. The disciplinary and regional differences in such collaborations are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global corporate restructuring often involves U.S. and Japanese alliance partners in interlinked portfolio choices. This paper develops theory and propositions that study U.S. and Japanese restructuring as a process of strategic choice, and introduces the concept of the restructuring profile. Japanese-U.S. strategic linkages create choices in the form of a call option on portfolio reconfiguration for the Japanese firm, and a put option on financial restructuring for its U.S. partner. While Japanese competition forms an initiating force for U.S. restructuring, it also offers a source of capital for that purpose--a unique situation in which the Japanese firm is a part of both the problem and the solution in its U.S. partners restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents views of expert Hayato Kato on the paper published on Competition Effects & Industrial Productivity: Lessons from Japanese Industry and discusses the relationship between competition and productivity growth, technological innovations and price-cost margin. He also argues for the interpretation of results needs more careful examination and discusses industry characteristics and exposure to international trades.

Fatal accidents caused by electric shock have been occurring since electricity was first introduced. Overall, the number of fatal accidents is decreasing. However, the decrease in the number of fatalities has slowed in recent years. A statistical study is needed to reconsider the preventive measures against these accidents. In this paper, the trend of fatalities by accident type and industry in Japan is studied statistically. These results show that the electric fatality rates differ by industry. The fatalities in the construction and the electrical-construction industries make up approximately 60% of the total fatalities. In addition, the accident type is most frequently contact with electrical lines by either the human body or a tool. In these industries, the elimination of fatal accidents from shocks is an important subject. These results will be helpful in preventing fatal accidents by electric shock. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents views of expert Toshihiro Okubo on the paper published on Competition Effects & Industrial Productivity: Lessons from Japanese Industry and discusses market competition in Japan, reformed market structure and Japanese government policy for it. He also discusses an impact of market competition on total factor productivity (TFP), policy evaluation, and productivity measures in service sectors.

The production of habutae, a simple silk fabric, expanded rapidly between 1890 and 1918 in Japan's Fukui Prefecture, with large exports to Europe and the United States. The production of habutae, initially woven by hand, was labour intensive, but it gradually became capital‐intensive after the introduction of power looms. Production and export of this fabric declined precipitously from 1918. In this paper, we attribute the rise and then fall of Japan's production and export of habutae to its changing comparative advantage, which is associated with shifts from labour‐using to capital‐using production technology initiated in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures nine indicators of profitability for the Chinese industrial firms during the period 1978-2006. In light of the results, it examines the issues such as the trend change of the Chinese profitability, difference of profitability between various categories of firms, impacts of inflation on the profitability calculated using the corporate accounting data, and comparison of profitability among China, Japan and US. Evidence found by the paper indicates the micro-economic underpinnings for the Chinese economic boom in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of closer worldwide economic integration, the role that environmental regulations play in shaping a country's comparative advantage is greater than ever. This has led to fears that ‘dirty’ firms will relocate from developed to developing countries where environmental regulations may be less stringent – the so-called pollution haven hypothesis. To date, however, there is little support for the existence of pollution havens despite anecdotal evidence and the theoretical predictions. In this paper we employ a unique industry-level dataset for Japan and examine whether Japanese industries have relocated production to their ASEAN neighbors in response to the relative stringency of Japanese environmental regulations. Not only do we find no evidence for pollution-haven-consistent behavior but also some indication that the complex relationship between the characteristics of Japanese dirty industries and environmental regulations may actually have reduced Japanese outward FDI to the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to identify high employment industries in Australia, Japan and the USA using input–output (IO) analysis. It is found that (1) the high and low employment-generating industries in 1980 and/or 1990 are almost the same as those in 1997. Thus on a relative basis, there is no evidence that high employment-generating industries have changed since 1980; and (2) the high and low employment-generating industries are very similar across these three countries. Four of the consistently high employment-generating industries in these countries are Food, Beverage and Tobacco; Chemicals, Petroleum, Coal, Rubber & Non-Metallic Minerals; Basic Metals/Fabricated Products; and Electricity, Gas and Water, with the first three industries being part of manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries have been shown to be competitive in specific industries. This paper contends that this industrial specialization can be understood in terms of an affinity between national 'models of capitalism' and the characteristics of industrial task environments. Put differently, industry-specific competitiveness is conceived to arise out of a fit between patterns of national business systems and patterns of industrial task environments. Specifically, the paper will propose a relationship between the communitarian or individualistic nature of national business systems and the organization-specificity of knowledge in an industry. More communitarian business systems are thought to enjoy a competitive advantage in industries with a high organization-specificity of knowledge, i.e. in industries that rely more on the long-term accumulation of organization-specific knowledge within tightly-knit corporate communities. More individualistic business systems, on the other hand, are thought to enjoy a competitive advantage in industries with a low organization-specificity of knowledge, i.e. in industries that thrive more on the speedy dissemination or reallocation of company-unspecific knowledge through a constant reconfiguration of social relationships. The paper will offer some illustrations of these proposed relationships in terms of the competitive profiles of the United States, Japan, Germany and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how firms in different technological and market share positions use foreign R&D to augment their technological capabilities. Technology transfer issues and absorptive capacity arguments are examined to analyze the different technological capabilities of leading and lagging firms. In addition, a new strategic rationale (in terms of non-dominant market share firms) that has not been considered in prior studies analyzing knowledge-seeking FDI is offered. From a panel dataset which includes information on all foreign R&D investments made by publicly traded Japanese manufacturing firms (from 1974 to 1994), I show that Japanese firms investing in foreign R&D tend to be the non-dominant market share firms, but also the technologically leading firms across fairly diverse industries. By considering both the technological and market share positions of firms, this study reveals important characteristics that influence when firms use foreign R&D as part of a strategy to augment their technological capabilities. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies show that the rate of return on research and development (R&D) capital is high. However, R&D-intensive industries in Japan have recently experienced a decline in performance. This study estimates the rate of return on R&D capital and physical capital as well as total factor productivity (TFP) to solve this puzzle. The rate of return is properly estimated applying the methods, which deal with simultaneity bias issues. After Japan entered the “lost decade”, the rate of return on R&D capital dropped significantly, while the rate on physical capital did not. This trend cannot be found by the methods without considering the issues, typically used in previous studies. The slowdown of TFP growth occurs coincidentally with a declining rate of return on R&D capital, which suggests the importance of innovations that enable effective use of R&D capital. Considering the trends, the declining rate of return on R&D capital along with the slowdown of TFP growth are the main causes of the low performance of recent R&D-intensive industries. The results of this paper also offer suggestions on economic policies and growth strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some analysts have argued that research links between universities and industry in Japan must be weak because Japanese universities do not produce high quality science and because regulations restrict links. This article begins by examining the structure and funding of universities and indicators of the performance of Japanese science. The results do not lend support to the view that the universities do not produce research useful to industry. In addition, the system is evolving in directions more favorable for university research excellence. Examining the regulations governing university-industry interaction, and their observance, reveals no insuperable bathers. Thus, it is not surprising that bibliometric indicators suggest Japanese companies collaborate with Japanese academics more than with foreign institutions. R & D. managers describe long-lasting relationships with academics, perhaps originating in college days, which continue with mutual benefits and obligations on both sides and provide valuable access to the wider network of the scientific community-access that money alone cannot buy. The stories of individual research collaborations establish the substantive nature of the underlying work, the importance of experimentation performed on university instrumentation, and the crucial role of personnel exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the latter half of the 1970s, interest in Japanese management and industrial relations increased in developing countries aiming to emulate the success of Japan. The entry of foreign investment to the Philippines also involves tensions related to human resource utilisation. This paper, using' primary data, surveys the issues related to human resource utilisation among Japanese firms operating in the Philippines. The paper focuses upon labour market internalisation policies: hiring and recruitment, skills formation through on-the-job training, job assignments, job rotation and wage determination [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the transfer of Japanese supervisory practices to their Great Britain-based Japanese transplants and to the Great Britain-based emulators. To this end the paper is divided into three further sections. The first section briefly reviewing the state-of-the-debate on Japanization: was it a 'straw man' debate, is it yesterday's news or does it still retain some saliency? The second section will provide a context for the study of supervisory systems and the third will provide the results of a recent empirical study, before conclusions are drawn.

This paper extends the understanding of the constellations of logics in Japanese management practices in Asia and the West. By adopting comparative ethnographic case studies in the context of a multinational corporation (MNC), it explores the cultural meanings of corporation, family, market, religion and profession logics in the subsidiaries in Thailand, Taiwan, Belgium and the US. In so doing, this paper contributes to the understanding of constellations of logics from cross cultural perspectives. Three findings are identified, and their significances are elaborated. First, the finding that the constellations of logics are somewhat distinct between Asia and the West indicates the role of cultural contexts in Asia and the West. Second, the finding that the constellations of logics are ongoing and continuously formed strongly questions one-off win or loss of logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theory of how the size of the domestic market shapes firm competencies. Our theory implies that large markets are beneficial even if factors such as economies of scale or learning effects are absent. We validate by an international comparison of the performance of firms that provide engineering services to the oil and petrochemical industry. We concluded that, relative to the United States, the competitiveness of European or Japanese industries is greater in activities whose underlying competencies are not product specific and can be utilized across a variety of products. The benefits of large markets are greatest for activities based on product-specific competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study mainly investigates the causal relation between the degree of competition,which is measured by the Lerner index, and the total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate on the basis of the Japanese industry-level panel data from 1980 to 2008. While the main finding uncovers a positive effect of competition on the TFP growth rate in manufacturing industries throughout the sample period, 1980–2008, the observed effect for non-manufacturing industries at this time is slightly negative. This unique finding of a negative competition effect suggests that the Schumpeterian hypothesis may be applicable in non-manufacturing industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the development and use of a green logistics performance index (GLPI) for easy comparison of performance among industries and countries. It uses the survey data collected from the home electronic appliance industry in China and Japan as an example to demonstrate the index development process and compare the performance of green logistics (GL) practices between the two countries using the proposed index. Design/methodology/approach – Two-sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyse the data collected from a questionnaire survey. Principal component analysis (PCA) was employed to derive the weights from the survey data for the GLPI. Findings – The findings reveal that the GLPI derived using PCA is robust and gives similar results as obtained through two-sample t-test and ANOVA of the dataset in the comparison of performance among firms and between countries in the study. Research limitations/implications – This study lends insight into the use of an objectively derived composite index to measure and compare GL performance. To serve mainly as a proof of concept and to enhance response rate in the questionnaire survey, the scope of the study is limited to three major logistics functions in an industry in two countries. Practical implications – Managers can use the GLPI to benchmark their performance in the respective logistics areas and revise their supply chain strategy accordingly. The proposed index may also assist governments in formulating policies on promoting their GL implementation. Social implications – A comprehensive composite index to benchmark GL performance can facilitate and encourage industries to invest in GL. This will help reduce negative impacts of logistics activities on the environment. Originality/value – Research in GL to date has largely focused on theory and management approach. This paper fills the gap in the literature by empirically comparing GL performance among firms and countries through the use of a composite index. It also contributes to a better understanding of the association between GL performance and firm size as well as the driving factors behind it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of garbage emitted from households and industries has been constantly increasing in recent years, and its treatment cost has been a financial burden to municipal governments in Japan. Many municipal governments recommend that their citizens purchase household garbage processors in order to reduce the volume of garbage transferred to and incinerated at their facilities. Actually, 1535 municipal governments subsidize their citizens' purchase of electrical garbage processors and/or compost containers. These subsidies should be assessed from various points of view, such as the costs and benefits to municipal governments and citizens, and also global or local environmental loads. An environmental planning department of a city office sent questionnaires to its residents to investigate the utilization of the subsidized devices. An environmental organization of citizens supported the department with design of the questionnaire form and analysis of the collected questionnaire data. In this paper, the processes of designing the form and analyzing the data are explained, and then an evaluation of the subsidy is presented. The conclusions are as follows: Electrical garbage processors would be beneficial for dealing with local environmental problems such as lack of a final landfill site. However, the processors will increase CO2 emissions unless their electrical consumption efficiency can be improved. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 93(7): 42–52, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10285 [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]

Banasick S. and Hanham R. Regional decline of manufacturing employment in Japan during an era of prolonged stagnation, Regional Studies. This paper uses a multivariate shift-share model to analyse the decline in manufacturing employment between 1990 and 2001 in Japan's industrial core and periphery, and in the country's prefectures. The model's regional effect indicates that regional context plays a variable role in shaping regional employment trends. Most prefectures in the periphery have dynamic regional contexts that tend to counter the negative effect of their industrial mix throughout the whole period. Between 1990 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997, most prefectures in the core had depressed regional contexts that failed to counter their negative industrial mix effect. After 1997, industrial restructuring in the core created more dynamic regional contexts to moderate the decline in employment... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the existence of structural breaks in the output time series of 84 Japanese manufacturing industries. The main result is that the effect of the bubble burst in the early 1990s was so limited that on the basis of value added, only 28% of production had structural breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the archaeological transitions among microblade industries in Hokkaido and to propose some possible relations between human activities and natural environment. Hokkaido is situated in the north of the Japanese archipelago, and the microblade industries in this region lasted approximately from 24,000 to 13,000 cal BP, corresponding to the climatic changes of the MIS2 Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) Cold2 and MIS2 Late Glacial Warm (LG Warm). The primary purpose of this paper is to describe the whole picture of transitions observed in microblade industries through a series of examinations on the size of microblades, maintenance of burins, and the stone tool classes. Results suggest that the following changes in hunting-related stone tools were occurred during the LG Warm: 1) miniaturization in the part of spears (microblades), 2) high frequency in burin maintenance, and 3) appearance of the new hunting weapon (i.e., projectile points), and axes. Then, a preliminary discussion on the possible relations between human activities and the natural environment including some significant climate changes is made referring to the recent studies on the analyses of charred deposits on pottery from the Taisho 3 site which belongs to LG Warm. Given the fact that the alterations in the environment and human activities were coincident, I propose the hypothesis that the transitions in microblade industries in Hokkaido was an outcome of human adaptation to the fluctuation in accessible natural resources caused by the globally occurred warming trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we set out to investigate whether strategic leadership matters at a moment in the life cycle of the firm when a change is made in the top leadership. By far, most of the conceptual and empirical literature on the consequences of CEO succession involves United States companies. Therefore, in this paper, we set out to investigate the impact of CEO succession on strategic and organizational changes in Japanese companies.The empirical study consisted of a matched control group design involving 81 Japanese companies experiencing a CEO succession event and 81 companies with continuity of their CEO leadership. The results of the study can be summarized as follows. Overall CEO succession was not associated with radical strategic and organization changes. Japanese companies did engage in evolutionary organization and strategic adaptations during the five year period of the study but independent of CEO succession. The governance structure moderates organization changes (independent of CEO succession) in particular when the firm was affiliated with a main bank and the firm was experiencing severe financial pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports statistical evidence on the diversification of Japanese large firms. The sample of the 124 largest firms was selected by the following procedure. The starting point was the 100 largest manufacturing firms in 1970 listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 1963 through 1975. Then, the firms which appeared either as the 100 largest by paid-in capital or by sales were classified by industry according to the definitions of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Sales of the 124 firms thus selected accounted for 24% of the paid-in capital of all incorporated firms or in aggregate 2629 billion yen in 1970. A profile of the sales by commodity was made for each firm. Findings suggest that the trend of diversification is influenced by the cyclical patterns of the economy as a whole. During the period observed, there were three recessions in the Japanese economy, 1965, 1971 and 1974, which can be identified easily by the changes in the rate of growth of real gross national product. The degree of diversification differs by industry. Raw material industries like petroleum and coal products, rubber, stone, clay and glass, pulp and paper, and steel show low rates of diversification. In contrast, diversification is more marked in industries like general chemicals, electrical machinery, precision machinery and general machinery.

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In this paper, the attractions of exposing the ideological dimensions of the thesis of Japanization of British manufacturing are set aside in favor of more basic objectives. The paper divides into four parts. The first shows how the preoccupation with Japanese methods has distorted the understanding of developments in the British manufacturing industry. Too much effort has been directed at understanding the operation of a small number of Japanese transplants; at the same time, the idea that there is a distinctively British pattern of organization has been played down. In the second section we use the concepts introduced originally by one of the authors to demonstrate the limited impact of both 'direct' and 'mediated' Japanization. The third section of the paper sets out the nature of the British manufacturing organization, bringing out its distinctive structural flexibility. The way in which it achieves this, the development of a form we have called the 'new flexible firm,' is explained in the paper's fourth section. Here we set out the combination of production technology, labor utilization and management control that characterizes much of British manufacturing.

The article presents views of experts on the paper published on Competition Effects & Industrial Productivity: Lessons from Japanese Industry including the views of Kiyohiko Nishimura on database protection and Masahito Ambashi on industrial estimation done in this paper.

The paper presents the 5S method, developed to ensure ergonomics in the workplace, productivity growth, reducing defects and increasing cleaning. 5S is a fundamental tool to promote continuous improvement process in organizations and represents a transformation in 5 steps of a job, which is characterized by maximum efficiency at the micro level and minimum loss. The tools which can be used for implementing could be the Kaizen circles for training, analysis and implementation, as well as visual elements, posters or graphics. The 5 phases are Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shitsuke, which can be translate as Sort, Set in order, Scrub, Standardize, and Sustain, focusing on orderliness and being applied especially in Japanese factories. The stages includes inputs objectives related to the efficiency and effectiveness of the process, but also subjective, which refers to moral values, education, training, culture. For each S stage, the most important elements which are underlying the implementation and maintain the compliance are described. Any company that applied the 5S program will have quick and visible results, reducing different types of waste. The final section presents a case study and some rules in order to sustain the designed standards and implement a continuous quality improvement. The concluding remarks could be considered as work instructions in order to implement the 5S rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents views of expert Deborah Swenson on the paper published on Competition Effects & Industrial Productivity: Lessons from Japanese Industry and argues for the incomplete view of competitive developments due to use of data on the cost of production for Japanese firms. He also argues for results related to the research and development, total factor productivity (TFP), and information technology evaluation.

This paper is an approach of how Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) and Ergonomics could be implemented in the field of work. The Toyota's Team Members are the owners of this job, applying tools and techniques to improve work conditions using the Kaizen Philosophy in a QCC Activity (Quality Control Circle). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While globally successful Japanese industries were able to use their domestic market as a springboard into international markets, Japan's telecommunications sector became decoupled from global markets, trapping Japanese ICT firms in the domestic market. This persistent pattern of leading without followers was not simply the result of misguided technological choices, ill-informed corporate strategies, or insular government standard-setting processes. Rather, the dynamics of competition, shaped and reshaped by political dynamics and regulatory structures, decoupled it from global markets. These dynamics created a 'Galapagos effect', in which winning in an isolated domestic market led to losing in global markets. Major regulatory shifts transformed the dynamics of competition since the late 1990s, decreasing the isolation of Japan's telecommunications sector, but some factors pulling it along a proprietary trajectory persist. This paper highlights the dilemma of how to develop beyond a follower status, but avoid becoming a leader without followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]