This book features 13 Japanese entrepreneurs who made a significant contribution to the development of society from 1868, when modernization in Japan began, to the 1950s, after World War II. They worked on solving social issues at the time through their businesses and succeeded in creating social value by solving social issues and economic value through the development of their businesses. The business philosophies they practiced have been passed on to their successors, and the companies they founded are now providing value to consumers around the world. Those 13 entrepreneurs anticipated the integration of solving social issues into corporate management, which modern companies are expected to realize under the umbrella of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by United Nations in 2015. Their trajectories provide a wealth of practical knowledge necessary to survive in a changing society and provide many valuable lessons for modern companies and their managers.

This book features 13 Japanese entrepreneurs who made a significant contribution to the development of society from 1868, when modernization in Japan began, to the 1950s, after World War II. They worked on solving social issues at the time through their businesses and succeeded in creating social value by solving social issues and economic value through the development of their businesses. The business philosophies they practiced have been passed on to their successors, and the companies they founded are now providing value to consumers around the world. Those 13 entrepreneurs anticipated the integration of solving social issues into corporate management, which modern companies are expected to realize under the umbrella of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by United Nations in 2015. Their trajectories provide a wealth of practical knowledge necessary to survive in a changing society and provide many valuable lessons for modern companies and their managers.

From being the last country in the world to open its doors to global trade in the 1850s to becoming the second industrialized nation in the 1960s, Japan has experienced impressive economic and social development over the last two centuries. In the last three decades, however, it became entrenched in a long phase of economic stagnation, dropping from second to third place in the global economy, having been overtaken by China in 2010. Inspired by the recent works on the history of capitalism, this history of business shows that the Japanese company was not the product of a unique national culture. Japanese capitalism was largely shaped by a political, economic, and institutional environment, which offered a variety of new opportunities to entrepreneurs, who also played a central role in the process of change. Rural capitalism that formed during the period of national seclusion shifted to industrial capitalism after the opening of the nation to global trade: this form of capitalism was close to those observed in other late industrializing countries, and was characterized by the monopolistic domination of large business groups or zaibatsu during the interwar years. The Second World War saw the emergence of wartime capitalism with the central government as the dominant actor in the economy, and, after 1945, the need to reconstruct the country and catch-up with advanced Western economies gave birth to a new form of capitalism based on a cooperative relationship between business and the state: communitarian capitalism, more broadly known as the Japanese Business System. The liberalization and deregulation brought new changes in the business system, marked by the emergence of financial capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s.

The service sector occupies a dominant position in the Japanese economy, yet few studies have looked at the way the industry developed. This book, first published in 1992, focuses on the growth and development of a major world security and communications corporation, SECOM. The success of the company has been rooted in the management strategies of Makoto Iida, who has shaped the company from a small localized business to an international industry at the forefront of innovation. The book first looks at the background of Makoto Iida, offering an insight into the nature of an entrepreneur and the issues this raises within the context of Japanese management styles. It then follows the company development stage by stage, assessing the importance of individual creativity in adapting and implementing traditional management techniques. It shows how strategies for human resources, service quality, new technology, globalization and corporate restructuring evolve within the context of a growing organization, and includes an analysis of the innovative marketing techniques and product development processes needed to sell security services to one of the world’s safest countries.

The inner workings of a Japanese company are revealed for the first time in Entrepreneur and Gentlemen, a best seller in the original Japanese version. Akira Sueno, the founder and president of Showa Boeki (one of Japan's leading packaging enterprises), typifies the Japanese entrepreneur in his unique system of management. Yet he also has the distinction of being a pioneer in the international trade arena. This broad range of experience has given him an exceptionally clear perspective on the Japanese management system and how it works, as well as an exceptionally detailed view of the behind-the-scenes realities of company life. Because Showa Boeki's history almost exactly parallels the economic growth of Japan—from the postwar chaos to the international activity of today—the story of its development makes for fascinating reading. Entrepreneur and Gentleman not only reveals to Westerners the Japanese company experience, but also offers the West an opportunity to look at itself through Japanese eyes.

This book is a much needed exploration on the relationship between government and business in pre-war Japan, making an important contribution to the literature by considering periods which have often been neglected by scholars.