著者

Seungkee Min

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0191025a, (Released:2019-12-06)

参考文献数

29

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Does keiretsu in the Japanese automotive industry vary by company in terms of firm performance and strategic behavior? This paper classifies parts-supply keiretsu into (1) Toyota suppliers and non-Toyota suppliers and (2) Nissan suppliers and non-Nissan suppliers and then conducts a comparative analysis of the suppliers to test differences in (a) firm performance, (b) customer scope, and (c) product diversity. The following results emerge from the analysis: (a) in regard to “firm performance (return on sales),” Toyota suppliers outperformed non-Toyota suppliers, but there was no difference between Nissan suppliers and non-Nissan suppliers; (b) with respect to “customer scope,” both Toyota suppliers and Nissan suppliers outperformed non-Toyota suppliers and non-Nissan suppliers, respectively; (c) as for “product diversity,” Toyota suppliers have less product diversity than non-Toyota suppliers, but there was no difference between Nissan suppliers and non-Nissan suppliers. These results indicate that the strategic behavior of Toyota suppliers differs from that of Nissan suppliers in that Toyota suppliers achieve high profitability by broadening customer scope and simultaneously narrowing product diversity. While prior research on keiretsu has not focused attention on the differences among keiretsu, the finding of this paper provides suggestive evidence that strategic behavior may vary across keiretsu member firms.

著者

Seungkee MIN

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.15, no.6, pp.265-272, 2016-12-15 (Released:2016-12-15)

参考文献数

11

被引用文献数

2 2

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Von Hippel (1988) coined the term “user innovation” by arguing that semiconductor device makers (equipment users) played a critical role as innovators in the development of semiconductor process equipments. However, in the same period of this study, the Japanese semiconductor process equipment manufacturer, ULVAC, autonomously conducted fundamental research on the material composition of cobalt–nickel–chrome (CoNiCr), a study that is generally conducted by device makers. Based on the material research outcome, ULVAC developed new manufacturing equipment for HDD and supplied it to users (device makers). Here we define this phenomenon as “adverse user innovation,” which works in an opposite manner to the “user innovation” of von Hippel (1988). In fact, there are likely to be numerous other examples similar to this case.