In international business, much attention has been directed to the international expansion of firms based on their use of resources and competitive capabilities that have been built up in a home country to create a competitive advantage over host-country firms. More recently, the organizational...

This exploratory paper deals with some basic concepts of architectural strategy, or application of the concept of architecture to strategic management, as well as the issue of measuring architecture. First, the paper discusses definitions and types of product architecture, including integral,...

Along with the process of economic reform and policy of opening to the outside world, China's auto industry has come to a point of new development. Since the manufacturing technology of cars is much more complicated than that of commercial vehicles, China has adopted a different strategy to...

This paper describes an interview with Eiji Toyoda, former president and chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation, who has been engaged in the company's automobile manufacturing business since its beginning in the 1930s. The interview covers some important topics for the sources and developments of...

Based on clinical field research data, this paper explores emerging patterns of automobile distribution in America. The paper focuses particularly on two aspects of the changes in the late 1990s: (1) new forms of automobile retailers in both used cars and new car businesses (e.g., so called...

This paper reports a speech by Michikazu Tanaka, former Senior Managing Director in charge of Production at Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd., about Taiichi Ohno, the creator of so called Toyota Production System (T. P. S.). Tanaka explains how Ohno, Executive Vice President of Toyota then, led the...

This paper summarizes a questionnaire survey conducted in the first half of 1999 as to historical developments and recent trends of parts transaction practices, component design architecture, inter-firm knowledge transfer, and competitive performance. 153 Japanese first-tier parts suppliers...

In international business, much attention has been directed to the international expansion of firms based on their use of resources and competitive capabilities that have been built up in a home country to create a competitive advantage over host-country firms. More recently, the organizational...

Shorter development lead times, other things being equal, contribute to competitive advantages in many of today's industries where market needs and available technologies are difficult to predict, rapidly changing or diversified and where novelty is highly valued in the market. In this paper, we...

The present situations and future prospects of the Japanese automobile industry are discussed. Selected topics in this paper include the following: analyses of the basic product-industry characteristics of the automobile (e.g., product architecture); the mature of the dynamic competition in the...