DEPARTMENT STORES
BUSINESS IN
Mika Takaoka
The first purpose of this article is to analyze the
business development of the Japanese department stores in the postwar
restoration era when the first regulation on procurement of the department
stores was legistrated in 1954. And, the second is to
argue the process to the consignment system, the largest problem of today’s
department store management.
The conclusion of this article can be summarized as
follows.
The factor which enabled the growth of Japanese
department stores in the period was the positive business environments, particulary westernization of fashion life. In order to
capture business chances, department stores leveraged their vertical
relationship with suppliers such as this return policy (henpin)
and dispatched salespersons (haken-tenin), because of
shortage of human and financial resources. However, as this return policy in
the postwar restoration era was different from the ruled system (in other words
mutually-agreed system) in the prewar era, suppliers had to owe all the risk of
return goods. The regulation in 1954 was made to solve these problems, but it
urged department stores adopt consignment system to avoid the occurrence of
return goods.
Adaptation of the consignment system by department stores
was also beneficial to the suppliers in two ways. First, suppliers felt urgency
to establish the rule of transaction with department stores to prevent
opportunism came’ out from unruled return system.
Second, sift from usual procurement to consignment system widened the ‘margin
of the suppliers.
Plainly speaking, the consignment system became
established due to mutual rationality between retailers and suppliers. In my
prospect, it may safely be said that other types of
IRON AND STEEL
WHOLESALE DEALER IN MEIJI ERA: THE DEVELOPMENT OF TSUDA KATSUGORO SHOTEN
Osamu Nagashima
A NEW PERSPECTIVE OF
STUDY ON THE POSTWAR BUSINESS HISTORY IN
Takeo Kikkawa
The purpose of this essay is to make clear a key problem
of study on the Japanese business history after the Second World War, and to
indicate concrete focuses of the study concerned.
The key problem of study on the postwar business history
in
This essay indicates three focuses of the study as
follows:
(1) to make clear changes of
industrial relations in connection with changes of production control and
quality control,
(2) to analyze changes of a
consuming trend in relation to changes of distributing structure and trade
practices, and
(3) to examine changes of
company finance with reference to changes of investment activities and business
results. And, as a conclusion, it emphasizes a new perspective, which should be
called as “business history of coping with crises”,
and an epoch-making change in the first half of the 1960s.
THE TRANSFORMATION
PROCESS FROM ZAIBATSU TO NEW ENTERPRISE GROUP IN CASE OF MITSUBISHI
Gakuya Hirai
After World War 11, the dissolution orders
of the zaibatsu was carried out by occupation policy. In Mitsubishi
zaibatsu, Mitsubishi-Honsha, which was a holding company, made efforts to
maintain to control many operating companies in spite of its own dissolution.
In zaibatsu, there used to be several kinds of committee, which were consisted
of top managers and general managers among the holding company and operating
companies. Mitsubishi-Honsha would
continue to exist these committee informally even under the liquidation.
But it had become impossible for Mitsubishi-Honsha to
control operating companies, because all of them had became autonomous,
independent companies owing to the dissolution of the holding company. For
example, Mitsubishi Electoric Corporation carried out
to revise wage system, without referring the matter to the general managers
committee in advance.
Each operating company did not always keep its own
autonomy for others. In cases of emergency, they cooperated with others to
dissolve the matter such as making stabilizing shareholders by mutual stock
holdings. And it was also important for operating companies to preserve of the
trade name and trademark. Because Mitsubishi Shoji, which had preserved all of
trade name and trademark in Mitsubishi zaibatsu, was divided in many companies
after the war, so there happened many troubles about them.
Generally speaking, enterprise group has two factors such
as top managers committee and mutual stock holdings. In case of Mitsubishi, top
managers committee had existed since before the war, differing from mutual
stock holdings among operating companies after the war. So each of them had a
different function, and top managers committee hardly had the function of large
shareholders meeting in case of Mitsubishi in 1950’s.
The transformation from zaibatsu to enterprise group in
1950’s was represented as the changing of the position of operating companies.
In zaibatsu, they were subject to the holding company formally. But in new
enterprise group, all of them had become independent companies after the dissolution
of the holding company. Therefore the function of top managers committee among
members of the group had changed from the control operating companies by the
holding company to the exchange of information and the interests
coordination by members of operating companies.
THE BUSINESS ACTIVITIES
OF MITSUI BUSSAN KAISHA, 1876-1896
Makoto Kasuya
It is commonly said that Mitsui Bussan Kaisha (hereafter
MBK) increases its trade volume satisfactorily in its founding period, 1876-1896.
The first purpose of this paper is to show the change in principal commodities
in which MBK dealt by analyzing its profit and loss statements in 1877, 1881,
1885, 1889, 1893, and 1896. MBK dealt mainly rice in 1877, increased the
transactions of coal from 1881, that of machinery from 1889, and that of raw
cotton from 1893. However it showed a decreased rice trade from 1890. The three
main goods in 1896, machinery, coal, and raw cotton, were established in this
way.
The second purpose is to analyze the activities of MBK’s
THE REORGANIZATION OF
“KANEBO GROUP” IN THE WARTIME ECONOMY
AnKi Joung
Kanebo was one of the major textile companies in prewar
The conclusions of this paper can be summarized as
follows.
1. As the War advanced the wartime controls became more
and more strict. These controls forced Kanebo’s
factories and equipments to be put to other uses. But, Kanebo
was able to deal with these controls in the framework of its own group through
its core subsidiary, Kanejitsu.
2. The wartime economy forced Kanebo’s
textile industry to shrink in
3. Kanejitsu was involved in
mining, machinery, chemicals, and steel industries so on and had diversified so
rapidly to supply the necessities of the military that the new company had
become larger than Kanebo, its parent at the end of
1943.
4. With the application of the wartime regulations the
framework of the administration of industries changed and the government
controls increased. This forced the Kanebo group to
move its center of administration from Kanebo to Kanejitsu, and at last these two merged to form a new
company, Kaneko.
5. The textile companies at the time followed two
patterns in dealing with diversification to meet the needs of the military.
One, exemplified by Toyobo, used investment and indirect administration and the
other, exemplified by Kanebo, used a reorganization
of the group companies and direct administration.
THE DEVELOPMENT AND
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
--Hidden Waves of
Semiconductor by Larger Scale Integration and Lager Yield Rate--
OKADA Tetsutaro
The semiconductor industry dates from after the war, and
it has developed remarkably since’1970’S. It has such originality as no other
industry has.
The production of semiconductor of
The semiconductor industry dates from 1947, when the
point contact transistor was invented. Germanium had been used as material of
semiconductor at first. It is easily affected by intense heat. Therefore it is
difficult to be used for military use, for example, a computer equipped on a
rocket missile. The
In
Generally speaking, the development of IC was towed by
demand for desk calculator. At that time, however, the total sales of desk
calculator hardly increased from 1973 to 1985. Because the
price fell down rapidly though the quantity of output increased sharply.
This price drop is caused by rising from high integration and ascent of yield
rate. Moreover, appearance of technology to use integrated circuits in common
amplified this effect. (Section 3)
The phenomenon that the total sales is constant in spite
of the sharp increase of the quantity appeared in not only desk calculator but
also semi-conductor devices. But, a case in the semiconductor is different from
that in the desk calculator as semiconductor has repeated waves
that is grounded on changes of generations under larger scale
integration and higher function. The form of development of
the semiconductor industry (called Waves of Semiconductor) have
peculiarity as follows:
First stage; the price of semiconductor manufactures tend
to decline constantly according to the increase of cumulative outputs. But the
total sales of the manufactures increase while the price is in higher level,
because increase of the quantity is taken into account beyond price drop.
Second stage; when the manufactures of current generation is main production,
the total sales scarcely grow because the price falls sharply notwithstanding
the favorable increase of the quantity of outputs. Third stage; when the price
become calm in lower level, the demand of the current manufactures accord with
saturation and then the generation is shifted toward new one. The quantity of outputs begin to decrease with gentle decline of
the price, therefore the total sales decline too. (Section 4)
The hypothesis of the Waves of Semiconductor explained as
follows: since there is intense competition on current generation of the
manufactures, manufacturers must proceed with R&D and investment against
next one.
CONTINUOUS
ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIORS AND THEIR STRATEGIC INNOVATIONS IN JAPANESE COMPUTER
GAME INDUSTRY
--The Development of
‘Software Factories’ at SEGA and Namco--
Kazunori Sunagawa
The purpose of this article is to analyze the business
development and entrepreurship of Japanese computer
game companies such as SEGA, Namco, and Nintendo.
Until the 1970’s, these firms were all once
small manufactures of amusement machines or toys. How did such relatively small firms in the urban area
grow up to be the profitable corporations we see today?
The first step is to analyze how they have been as the
leading companies in the fragmented computer game market which has been
characterized by frequent changes with increasing speed since the formative
years of the industry. Nintendo, the first mover, created its business system
based on the strategy of outsourcing in software production and
quasi-integration of distributors as “Shoshinkai.”
SEGA and Namco tried to attack Nintendo’s system using the strategy of building
internal software development capabilities, which generated software production
organizations which are, in using Michael Cusumano’s
terminology, ‘software factories.’
The second step is to analyze the mechanism of the
‘software factory’ as in the case study of ‘AM 2 ken’ (the 2nd R&D division
of arcade machines) of SEGA. Its origin is intra-firm venture business in the
crisis era of the arcade game market in 1985. AM 2 ken has been developing and
driving SEGA’s innovation since then. Its software
production is done by small cross-functional teams, and its advantage is based
on the communication ‘on the shop floor’, where old business resources and new
technologies are combined. It enabled gestalt change from ‘waterfall’ model to
‘revise’ model in grasping the process flow of software production.
The study shows that small manufacturers in the urban
area pioneeringly introduced basic hardware
technology from U.S. in 70’s and created the new market by developing and
concentrating on the innovation of software and contents. In this way,
relatively small firms could grow by bypassing the demerit of economy of scale.
Here is the logic of ‘small is strong.’
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
AIRLINES DURING THE PERIOD OF HIGH GROWTH ECONOMY IN
--The Business Strategy
of All
Masaaki Tsuruta
It is interesting to examine how ANA (All Nippon Airways)
has developed during the period of rigid state intervention between the 1960 s
and the early 1970s. In this paper we will investigate their strategy in the
period. We will concentrate on the following policies: investment and finance.
One of the most significant issues for their development
was how to invest in aircraft. They had been in a position to catch up with JAL
(Japan Air Lines) in major routes in the period. They achieved this by
introducing high performance aircraft more positively than JAL. On minor routes
ANA frequently replaced’ aircraft in order to maintain high performance. Those
policies encouraged the opening of new minor routes and stimulated increasing
demand for air transport.
Another important matter was how to finance the
purchasing of aircraft. During the
first half of the 1960 s ANA had not yet been in a position to borrow money from
banks in the
It was the
characteristic of their business strategy that they used their aircraft
effectively and was financed from