This paper evaluates the link between the diffusion of electricity and the increase in labour productivity growth in the manufacturing sector during the inter-war period. A comparative analysis of the USA, Britain, Germany, and Japan shows that the trend acceleration in labour productivity is...

Consumers often purchase more than one differentiated product, assembling a portfolio, which might potentially affect substitution patterns of demand and, as a consequence, oligopolistic firms' pricing strategies. To study such consumers' portfolio considerations, this paper develops and...

This paper estimates the factors affecting the relationship between the wins and losses of corporate sports club teams and the work morale of employees, using an original survey of employees from a selected Japanese automobile maker. We find that corporate sports club teams' performance is an...

This paper analyzes the effect of policies on the Japanese automobile industry before 1945. Japan achieved import substitution of trucks before World War II. It also exported small size passenger cars then. In the process of the development of automobile industry, the government policies seemed...

Increasing awareness of the intrinsically complex nature of supply networks has brought the field of supply chain management into the domain of network science. However, due to the difficulties of acquiring large-scale and consistent empirical data sets, a more complete picture of a real-world...

The main features of the Toyota Production System (TPS) have been widely publicised and discussed since the 1980s. By now, other car manufacturers might reasonably have been expected to have learned the lessons and fully caught up with Toyota's productivity levels. This has still not happened....

Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) are both representative Japanese automobile manufacturers. However, there is a commonality and a difference between the two. The commonality is that both of them had sunk into the doldrums. Subsequently they aimed at corporate reconstruction by...

We examine the use of partial equity stakes and volume-based dependence balancing in Japanese automotive supply relationships. Building on Williamson's (1983) hostage model, we argue that the robustness of different types of hostage arrangement depends on the value, durability, and observability...