Technology and industrial development in Japan
Subtitle: building capabilities by learning, innovation, and public policy
By: Hiroyuki Odagiri and Akira Goto ; with a foreword by Richard R. Nelson.
Contributors: Gotō, Akira, 1945-
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 309
Subjects: Technological innovations -- Economic aspects -- Japan -- History.; Entrepreneurship -- Japan -- History.; Japan -- Economic conditions -- 1868-; Japan -- Economic policy.
Description: This book studies the industrial development of Japan since the mid-nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on how the various industries built technological capabilities.

The Japanese were extraordinarily creative in searching out and learning to use modern technologies, and the authors investigate the emergence of entrepreneurs who began new and risky businesses, how the business organizations evolved to cope with changing technological conditions, and how the managers, engineers, and workers acquired organizational and technological skills through technology importation, learning-by-doing, and their own R & D activities.

The book investigates the interaction between private entrepreneurial activities and public policy, through a general examination of economic and industrial development, a study of the evolution of management systems, and six industrial case studies: textile, iron and steel, electrical and communications equipment, automobiles, shipbuilding and aircraft, and pharmaceuticals.

The authors show how the Japanese government has played an important supportive role in the continuing innovation, without being a substitute for aggressive business enterprise constantly venturing into unfamiliar terrains.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [280]-294) and indexes.