- 著者
-
松原 日出人
- 出版者
- 経営史学会
- 雑誌
- 経営史学 (ISSN:03869113)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.49, no.3, pp.3_3-3_27, 2014 (Released:2017-11-10)
During the 1970s and 1980s, most of the Satsuma mandarin-producing regions of Japan faced a crisis owing to excessive supply. However, around this time, the town of Mikkabi in Shizuoka Prefecture, whose key industry is the production of mandarin oranges, recorded remarkable market growth. This study examines the competitiveness acquired by the mandarin producers in Mikkabi that helped them survive the crisis that crippled the rest of the industry.Among the various fruit industries in Japan, the Satsuma mandarin industry experienced the most dramatic vicissitudes of fortune. The industry grew remarkably in the 1950s and 1960s, but began to decline during the 1970s and 1980s due to oversupply. During this period of crisis, the mandarin producers in Mikkabi not only survived but actually prospered. However, Mikkabi's success in overcoming the decline remains incompletely understood. This study describes how the Mikkabi mandarin-producing region overcame the difficulties plaguing the rest of the industry and succeeded by actively building competitiveness in the volume retailer market.Based on the analysis, we conclude that Mikkabi transformed itself in response to changes in the market and established core competitiveness in the newly growing market—the volume retailer market. Specifically, while entering the volume retailer market, mandarin producers in the Mikkabi region switched to the more competitive Aoshima variety to increase the competitiveness of their large lot produce. Thus, Mikkabi built new competitiveness in the growing volume retailer market, not in the existing small retailer market that was on the decline.