The Tasks of Business History
KEIICHIRO NAKAGAWA
All of the six articles in
this issue (Vol. 1, No. 1) of the Japan Business History Review are
papers read at the first annual meeting of the Business History Society in
In the opening address, Nakagawa emphasized the need for an interdis-ciplinary approach; he asked business-, entrepreneurial- and economic his-torians, who have been stressing the organizational-, cultural- and economic factors, to cooperate more closely to achieve a unified history of business. Nakagawa tried to explain the interactions of the above three factors in a tentative comparison of English, American and Japanese development.
A sociologist, Professor Hazama of the Tokyo University of Education, introduced to the economic historians the usefulness of the Parsons-Smelser model in analysing the objectives and motivations of business and the personalities of business men. Using the same model, he explained the reason for the different social sanctions awarded to the two eminent Meiji entrepreneurs, Shibusawa Eiichi and Yasuda Zenjiro.
The third speaker. Professor Takada of
An economic
historian. Professor Otsuka
of the
Professor Katsura of
Professor Inoue of
“How should the company history be written?” by making a distinction
between five types of business history studies: A) administrative history developed by the late N.S.B. Gras and Professor H.M. Larson and their group in Harvard Business School, B) in sharp contrast with A, the business history in East Germany, C) innovation history organized from Schumpeter’s concept, D) Redlich’s school which emphasizes the role of coping and routine for economic growth as well as the innovations for development, E) entrepreneurial history developed by Professor A. H. Cole. Professor Inoue himself is trying to find in the individuality of each way of business management reflections of general circumstances of economic development.
For Japanese business historians are now available all the ways of approach
developed in the
The Historical Background of the Birth of the Science
of
Management in the
by
Moriaki Tsuchiya
.
Conscious efforts to form a science of management were initiated in the
The possibility of a science of management was primarily percieved by H. Metcalfe and H.R. Towne in the 1880‘s. Thereafter many authors, mainly mechanical engineers, discussed management problems, but their interest was limited to the workshop. Therefore, the basic conditions for the birth of the new science of management might be thought to be in the workshop on which the top business managers focused their attention.
However, the top-managers of the emerging big businesses in the
Cost reduction by the improvement of efficiency was the most important problem in the workshops of the eastern metal-working industries; owners had abolished the sub-contracting system and directly controlled the workmen.
At the same time, metal-working factories had become increasingly specialized in the product they were manufacturing. Such specialization made it possible to achieve fairly complex division of labor and, as result, the work of a laborer could be measured objectively.
These were the particular conditions in the eastern machine shops from which the science of management emerged.
The Concept of Fixed Capital and Industrial
Revolution in
by
Akio Okochi
Fixed Capital in most of the manufacturing industries increased remarkably as a result of the industrial revolution. Research in the history of accounting indicates, however, that modern .accounting methods, including depreciation and cost accounting to deal with the increased fixed capital, were gradually developed in the late nineteenth century. During the more than fifty year time lag, how was fixed capital treated in the accounting of the manufacturing business; what delayed the appearance of industrial book-keeping?
One important premise to remember is that during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries lease of the workshop, including
machines and other equipment was quite common in
Before the end of the eighteenth century, however, some of the larger and leading enterprises had their own workshops and equipment. In such cases, they had to be aware of the annual depreciation of their own invested capital and the accounting of costs, which included transference of the depreciated capital value.
For example, Samuel Oldknow, a famous muslin manufacture, recognized the transference of the fixed capital value to the value of his products; but he did not list the depreciation. The annual decrease in value, or depreciation of the fixed capital, was clearly recognized in the trading account of the Soho Engine Manufactory, managed by Boulton and Watt, but they were hardly concerned about the transference.
Thus, during the industrial revolution, the basic ideas about fixed capital had already begun to appear; but so long as the lease of workshops was widespread, the concept of the fixed capital could not be generally recognized.
The Management Structure of the Nambu
House of Ono Gonemon
by
Mataji Miyamoto
This paper is concerned with the management organization of the Ono Gonemon family, descendants of the house of Ono Zensuke. The Ono Gonemon house
was known by the name Kagiya in
Leaders of the Sumitomo Zaibatsu
by
Yoshitaro Wakimura
The Sumitomo Zaibatsu,
one of the biggest business groups in
has grown uninterruptedly since the Meiji Restoration. The key factor
of its growth may be found in its unique leaders-recruitment policy.
This paper introduces many of its leaders and analyzes the recruitment
and personnel policy of the Zaibatsu.
The Development of the Advertising Industry
in
by
Toshikazu Nakase
No previous analysis has been made of Japanese advertising (advertising industry and capital) from a social scientific point of view. The study of the history of advertising has also been limited to discussions of custom and fashion.
This paper outlines the history of Japanese advertising in relation to the
growth, development and crises of Japanese capitalism, by considering the
functions of advertising in several periods of history. It also shows how and when the
advertising agency came about and has continued to develop in
The Entrepreneur System in the Industrialization
of 19th Century
Official Supervision and Merchant Management System
by
Tien-yi Yang
This paper is a study of the
bureaucratic entrepreneur in the system of Kuan-tu
sang-pan (Official Supervision and Merchant Management System: 官督商弁組織), using the China Merchants’ Steam
Navigation Co. and
the
The Kuan-tu sang-pan pattern was also deliberately designed to tap the new source of compradore capital which had developed in the treaty ports after 1842, and the share capital of these enterprises came largely from treaty-port merchants. Although the Kuan-tu sang-pan firms were joint official-merchant undertakings, the officials sought to regulate operations and keep them within their complete control by means of their great political weight in the traditional bureaucratic system; in general terms, merchant management was to be guided by official supervision. In the Kuan-tu sang-pan formula an appointee of the firm’s promoter was the supervising official; although the position of the merchant manager was ambiguous, he usually held official rank and was also a representative of the shareholders. The management of these enterprises was characterized by their traditional practices, bureaucratic motivation, and corruption. It was deficient in the rationalized organization, functional specialization, and impersonal discipline associated with the development of modern industry in the West.
The China Merchants’ Steam
Navigation Co. was established in an effort to compete with the foreign
shipping, mainly British, which was dominating trade in Chinese waters. The establishment of the Shanghai Cotton
Cloth Mill was the first attempt to establish a Chinese-owned factory to
manufacture cotton goods in competition with the huge, and growing, flood of
imports from the mills of