Japanese Multinationals

This book brings together research on the spread of Japanese multinational firms around the world. The authors' research includes firms operating in the United States, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Italy, as well as countries in Southeast Asia. The continuing success of these firms provides a model for other countries and firms to understand and emulate. The contributors in this book demonstrate how Japanese multinationals manage the people in their overseas operations and have wide-ranging implications for multinational performance as well as the performance of the local economies in which they operate. It is a learning experience for the Japanese managers when they find a cultural conflict with local workers and have to find ways to overcome this conflict in order for the local affiliate to succeed. Finally, the authors draw conclusions that can be applied to multinational firms in other countries that are expanding into different cultures.

Japanese electronics firms have grown into formidable competitors on world markets, but have only expanded seriously their manufacturing presence world-wide since 1985. This volume probes the difference of Japanese multinationals, and examines how the United States and Europe have responded to the Japanese challenge. Belderbos provides original insights into the determinants and effects of the internationalization of Japanese electronics firms and the relationship with trade policy measures in the United States and the European Union.

The essays in this volume explore the phenomenon of foreign industrial recruitment in terms of the experience of six mid-American states--Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee--in attracting Japanese automobile assembly facilities. The contributors illumate the background to and the comparative setting for the mid-American competition for Japanese automobile plants in the era of international corporate flight, probe the dynamics of development in terms of six site-specific studies, and place these six state industrial recruitment experiences within the wider framework of federal-state relations.

This collection explores the expansion of Japanese multinational firms into Asia, a process which parallelled the region's growth as a major economic region. The contributors discuss a wide range of topics, including the reasons for moving manufacturing to other countries, the flow of trade between Japan and these countries, technology transfer within firms, the impact of Japanese management practices in other Asian countries, and competition between Japanese and American firms in Asia.

Japanese foreign direct investment surged into Western markets in the late 1980s provoking intense policy debates in Europe and America. How did the European authorities respond to this 'Japanese Challenge'? How did their response compare to the US policy record? Does this international business activity give any insights into the idea of increasing convergence of behaviour of the world's capitalist economies? To answer these questions, Mark Mason investigates European policies towards the Japanese Challenge in cross-national and historical perspectives. He compares the policy response of European governments with that of the US government by contrasting case studies in three key sectorsthe automobile industry, consumer electronics, and banking. The case studies are then examined in the context of wider policy patterns and models across the entire Triad throughout the postwar period. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in international business history, Japanese investment policies, international trade, corporate strategy, and government-industry relations.