Japan's Network Economy
Structure, Persistence, and Change
Published on 16. August 2004
Book
Hardback
430 pages
978-0-521-45304-2 (ISBN)
Description
Japan's economy has long been described as network-centric. A web of stable, reciprocated relations among banks, firms, and ministries, is thought to play an important role in Japan's ability to navigate smoothly around economic shocks. Now those networks are widely blamed for Japan's faltering competitiveness. This book applies structural sociology to a study of how the form and functioning of this network economy has evolved from the prewar era to the late 90s. It asks whether, in the face of deregulation, globalization, and financial disintermediation, Japan's corporate networks - the keiretsu groupings particularly - have 'withered away', losing their cohesion and their historical function of supporting member firms in hard times. Using detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis, this book's conclusion is a qualified 'yes'. Relationships remain central to the Japanese way of business, but are much more subordinated to the competitive strategy of the enterprise than the network economy of the past.
Reviews / Votes
'Finally, we have an authoritative treatment of how network coordination at the top of the Japanese economy evolved to such prominence and adapted to external change. Lincoln and Gerlach clarify a new balance in the Japanese economy between market forces and inter-firm obligation. I particularly enjoyed their description of cohesive networks fostering a hubris that encouraged risky financial behavior and learned from their extended concluding chapter on the historical context for what is to come in Japan. I put this one on my shelf right next to Regional Advantage and The Second Industrial Divide.' Ronald S. Burt, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago 'The literature on Japan's corporate networks has reached full maturity with Japan's Network Economy. In many ways a sequel to Gerlach's Alliance Capitalism and Lincoln's earlier journal publications, this book represents scholarship at its best - combining qualitative evidence with formal network analysis applied thoroughly, for the first time, to both horizontal and vertical keiretsu structures. The result is a compelling story about a subtle, but real, transformation in Japan's corporate network landscape.' Mari Sako, Said Business School, University of OxfordMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
845 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-45304-2 (9780521453042)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
James R. Lincoln holds the Mitsubishi Chair in International Business and Finance at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author (with Arne Kalleberg) of Culture, Control, and Commitment: A Study of Work Organizations and Work Attitudes in the US and Japan (with Arne Kalleberg, Cambridge University Press, 1990). Michael L. Gerlach is Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Alliance Capitalism: The Social Organization of Japanese Business (1992).
Content
List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. The structural analysis of the network economy; 2. The origins of Japanese network structures; 3. The evolution of a corporate network: a longitudinal network analysis of 259 large firms; 4. Exchange and control: explaining corporate ties: a longitudinal dyad analysis; 5. Intervention and redistribution: how keiretsu networks shape corporate performance; 6. Japan's next generation industrial architecture; Bibliography; Index.