Small Business In The Japanese Economy

Comprehensive analysis of the significant but often overlooked role of small firms in Japan's economy.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,0, University of Northampton, language: English, abstract: Japan is the second largest industry nation in the world. At the end of World War II Japan was in ruins and lagged far behind the industrialized and experienced western nations. However, it has managed to compete against almost all other countries in relatively short time without any appreciable help. The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as the main corporation form have played a crucial role for the country’s miracle and development of the modern economy after the war, as large companies were all destroyed, people have lost their livelihood and world markets were shrinkage. Today, the small and medium-sized enterprises are still serving as the driving and dominant force for the domestic economy. According to JETRO (2002), the total number of small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan are 6.51 million, which represent 99.1 % of the total businesses (excluding primary industry); SMEs’ contribution amounts to 81% of the total employment (excluding employment in the prime industries), 51.7% of the total shipment of manufacturing industry, 61% of the total sale in the whole sale and 78% in the retail. Clearly, the growth of the Japanese SMEs depends on several success factors, such as technologies, marketing skills, capital funds and effective resource management in the last four decades (Ohmea, 1982). However, some western countries like U.K. and France were using the same development strategy as Japan after the World War II, and their economies still declined dramatically competing with Japan. Therefore, there must be some special influential factors in the Japanese companies that are totally different from western models. This paper focuses mainly on the socio-cultural development of SMEs in Japan with typical Japanese characteristics and analyses the influential yet distinguishing success factors and their implications for the Japanese SMEs. The paper will further approach the socio-cultural disadvantages of the existing systems and the government roll for Japanese SMEs and draw conclusion in the last section.

Using comparative studies and original research, this book discusses the extent to which the Japanese economy encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Analysis of information published in the White paper on small and medium enterprises in Japan

Compilation of writings on the contribution of medium and small scale industry to the economic development of Japan - covers financing, capital formation, management, labour productivity, employment, wages, working conditions, export contributions, the structure of the retail trade and wholesale trade by size, industrial policy, etc. References and statistical tables.