This book analyzes the top management of leading Japanese enterprises. Drawing on the work of Alfred Chandler, Morikawa demonstrates the difference between family-owned firms and professionally managed firms.

Deals with the history of labour management from the Meiji Restoration (1868) until the beginning of the Second World War. Disagrees that Japanese-style management is inherited from the feudal past, and shows the impact of businesses imported from the West after reunification in 1867-68 and how these were amalgamated with a range of Japanese traditions.

A challenge to superficial and mistaken assumptions about Japan's top management among foreign businessmen, such as Japanese management's supposed long-term outlook, slow decision-making, and strong desire for new technologies. The hard facts to destroy these myths is provided, based on interviews with managers in 100 top Japanese firms. Current Japanese management practice is placed in the context of the business relations developed to rebuild the shattered economy after World War Two, and the monumental changes which took place after the crash of the bubble economy in 1992. New scenarios for Japan's future are discussed and examined.

With the service industry taking up the largest portion of its GDP, Japan has much to share in the area of managing service industry. This book explores and elucidates the unique management styles in non-manufacturing industries or service industries in contemporary Japan, both practically and theoretically through case studies. These specially selected cases are the management of the world No.1 convenience store chain of Seven-Eleven, the sales finance business and auto sales business of Toyota, application of TPS (Toyota Production System) to life insurance company, performance evaluation of local government, BSC (balance scorecard) in local government hospitals, cost and pricing policy of telecommunication company, Japanese-style OC hospitalityOCO in the retail industry, service level agreement (SLA) in IT and shared service companies, and ICT (Information & Communication Technology) applied to BPN (Business Process Network) of service industry.The analyses presented in this book were carefully laid out in regard to the business in general. It will be useful for business practitioners in service industry and beneficial to the scholars, students or general readers interested in this area.

After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.

This 2003 book offered the first in-depth international survey of contemporary research and debates in business history. Over the two decades leading to its publication, enormous advances had been made in writing the history of business enterprise and business systems. Historians are documenting and analyzing the evolution of a wide range of important companies and systems, their patterns of innovation, production, and distribution, their financial affairs, their political activities, and their social impact. Each essay is written by a prominent authority who provides an assessment of the state and significance of research in his or her area. This volume is a reference work that will be of immense value to historians, economists, management researchers, and others concerned to access the latest insights on the evolution of business throughout the world.