MAGOSABURO OHARA,
‘PRESIDENT OF
Katsusuke Otsuki
The name Magosaburo Ohara (1880-1943) conjures up in the mind of many people
the image of a great cultural figure of rare farseeing intelligence. This is
due to his position as the founder of
These images alone, however, would not do justice to the
totality of Ohara the man. For they fail to capture
his greatness as a prominent entrepreneur and a theorist of unique labor management
policies.
Ohara served his presidency at Kurashiki Cotton
Spinning, now known as Kurabo Industries, in the years between 1906 and 1939.
At the firm, he committed himself to the expansion of spinning projects. Under
the leadership of Ohara, KCS had continuously made
remarkable progress through the years, eventually establishing itself as one of
Ohara founded eight research institutes in his lifetime. Of these, Ohara Institute of Social Problems and Kurashiki
Institute of Labor Science were of particular importance to the founder. For it
was at these two institutions that Ohara developed
his own theories of labor management policies through studies on the
relationships between industry and laboratories.
This paper, from the perspective of business history,
will shed fresh light upon Magosaburo Ohara, focusing on his activities as a great entrepreneur.
It will also examine many of his unique concepts on labor management policies.
These policies, widely practiced at KCS during his presidency, seem to reflect Ohara’s entrepreneurial spirit. The paper will be concluded
with the author’s rationales for considering Ohara’s
management ideas to be theoretically sound. Chief among those is his business
ideology of collaborative workshop, which is neither a form of paternalism nor
of collusive harmony between labor and capital.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
INTER-FIRM RELATIONSHIPS IN THE JAPANESE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTIY: A CASE STUDY OF
Kazuo Wada
The production of an automobile requires the assembly of
over twenty thousand parts. Automobile manufacturers do not make such a large number
of parts within their own firms but purehasel to
varying extents, some parts from suppliers. Therefore, the purchasing policies
and relationships with their suppliers have considerable effects on the quality
and cost of their final products. Japanese automobile manufacturers organize
suppliers in a hierarchical order: its first-tier suppliers form a Kyoryoku-kai (Cooperative Association of Suppliers).
First-tier suppliers in turn organize second-tier supplier groups. The Japanese
automobile manufacturers claim to maintain long-term relationships with their
suppliers and to cooperate closely. This is often claimed to be the opposite to
American automobile manufacturers’ approaches to suppliers: they do not
organize suppliers in a hierarchical order; and they often purchase parts on a
spot-price basis, without developing long-term relationships and close
cooperation with suppliers.
This paper traces how the existing inter-firm
relationships were evolved at
BUSINESS ETHICS IN THE
RISE AND DECLINE OF THE BRITISH ECONOMY
Takeshi Yuzawa
This paper analyzes business ethics both in the period of
the Industrial Revolution and during the decline of the British economy in the
late nineteenth century. It begins by discussing the social strata from which
businessmen emerged and the kind of opportunities which they made use of in
doing their business. There have been lots of arguments on the origin of
entrepreneurs and their business performance, but according to recent studies,
entrepreneurs tended to come not from the bottom but from the middle of
society.
The motives of entrepreneurs in the Industrial Revolution
were described in the works of Samuel Smiles. His most popular book was
Self-Help, published in 1859. His idea derived from Adam Smith’s concept of
laissez-faire. Smiles worked in railway companies as a secretary for more than
twenty years, while he wrote various books and articles. It is interesting to
compare his ideas as set out in his books with his actual performance, as the
companies became larger and their organization more bureaucratic.
The question is why businessmen’s spirits flagged at the
end of the nineteenth century. I analyze first the social structure in the late
nineteenth century and then the changing patterns of business ideas, recently
well summarized by M. J. Wiener. Indeed his viewpoint is widely accepted in
This paper examines critically current discussions on the
topic of British business ethics, and reconsiders the stereotype of the British
businessman which has become a handed-down orthodoxy in the Japanese academic
world.
COMPANY
GROUPS, TRADE ASSOCIATIONS, AND THE GOVERNMENT IN
Takeo Kikkawa
The purpose of this essay is to make
clear the roles of company groups, trade associations, and the government for
the competitive power or growth of Japanese companies. It takes up the case of
the petrochemical industry, which presents the most suitable data on the point
at issue.
The first half of this paper examines
the historical outline of
1. The period
of the beginning of home production (1957-1964);
2. The period
of the large-sized investment in plant and equipment
(1965‐1973);
3. The period
of the reorganization of the industry after the first and second oil Shock (1974-).
The latter half investigates the
functions of company groups (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo), trade
association (Sekiyu Kagaku Kogyo Kyokai, the Petrochemical
Industry Association), and the government (the Ministry of International Trade
and industry). After due criticism against the commonly accepted theories, I
draw two conclusions as follows:
1. Company groups,
trade associations, and the government made many-sided contributions to the
competitive power or growth of Japanese companies.
2.
Nevertheless, the functions of company groups, trade
associations, and the government was within the limit of supplementing
organizational capability of Japanese companies.
STUDY OF THE TREND OF
THE MANAGEMENT OF A TEXTILE WEAVING FACTORY IN SENBOKU TEXTILE WEAVING INDUSTRY
IN INTERWAR PERIOD
Takanori Matsumoto
The aim of this paper is to examine the trend of Senboku (the southern district of Osaka prefecture) textile
weaving industry in the interwar period by analyzing the trend of the
management of a textile-weaving factory in the district. For the examination,
we have investigated the trend of the management of Nayatake
textile weaving factory in the interwar period. Through this investigation, we
can divide the management period of Nayatake textile
weaving factory in the interwar period into three parts as follows.
1. The management
period in which Nayatake mainly produced cotton
textile goods (1922-25).
The management of Nayatake in
this period depended heavily upon Senboku county. In short Nayatake carried
on most of transactions with cotton yarns wholesale stores, textile wholesale
stores, and banks in Senboku county.
2. The management
period in which products of Nayatake were diversified
(1926-30).
Nayatake adopted a product diversification strategy in which Nayatake
produced cotton blankets and cotton shawls in addition to cotton sheets in
order to get out of depression: Sa the management of Nayatake in this period was very different from the first
period. The term-end profit of Nayatake was improved
by adopting this strategy. And also as far as yarns and textile wholesale
stores and banks were concerned, Nayatake carried on
transactions on a much larger scale than the first period by adopting it. To
put it concretely, as far as wholesale stores were concerned, Nayatake depended much more upon
3. The management
period in which Nayatake mainly produced woolen
textile goods (1931-38).
As the management of Nayatake
continued to suffer a decrease in profit for seven semiannual settlement terms,
Nayatake needed further diversification of its
products. So Nayatake started to produce woolen goods
by introducing high-performance wool-looms. Introducing them made Nayatake capital intensive, and a term-end profit was
improved quickly. In this period Nayatake tended to
sell woolen goods to wholesale stores in
Through the analysis mentioned above, the conclusion of
this paper should be noted as follows.
Senboku county became the most famous woolen textile
weaving area in
THE HONGKONG BANK'S
EVEN KEEL AS A DEFENSE POLICY FOR THE DEPRECIATION OF SILVER
Masashi Kitabayashi
In the last quarter of the 19th century, the history of
eastern banking was dominated by the depreciation of silver in terms of gold.
The continuous decline in the value of silver was a problem for all eastern
exchange banks. The Oriental Bank,
which was the largest bank in
Under these circumstances, the Hongkong
Bank extended their business, made remunerative profits and became the largest
bank in
Even though the Hongkong Bank adopted the Even Keel Policy, the Bank could
not overcome all difficulties. The Bank suffered considerable losses on the
exchange business in 1886. The other purpose of this article is to try to
investigate why the Bank suffered heavy losses in 1886. The foreign exchange
banks had to lay in fund largely at Hankow as
preparation for the Chinese tea season. They had remitted a very large amount
of their funds to Hankow in