30% Off For My Book on Japan Entrepreneurship

Pre-Order from Oxford; Set to be Out in December; See Instructions in Bold

I’m proud to announce that, in late December, Oxford Univ. Press will publish my book on reviving entrepreneurship in Japan. Moreover, OUP is offering a 30% discount on the hardcover edition for Substack subscribers, from $34.95 to $24.47. Even with a shipping charge that’s still cheaper than Amazon, even if you have Amazon Prime. It will also be available on Kindle and other e-readers in December for $24.95. The paperback version will not be out until further down the road. The Japanese edition will be out next year.

Pre-orders are important because they encourage Oxford to expend more effort on marketing and to launch with a bigger print run. So, if you intend to buy the hardcover edition, please do so now. The book will be shipped to you as soon as it comes out.

To order, click on https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-contest-for-japans-economic-future-9780197675106?q=katz%20and%20japan&lang=en&cc=us, then “add to cart” and then in the promotion code box ASFLYQ6 and click “apply.” If you have any problem, please email me at rbkatz@rbkatz.com.

The 30% book discount is only available at Oxford’s global site. When you get there, it will list the United States as the home country on the upper right, since that is where the book is being printed and shipped from (see below). Do not switch to your home country site because you will not be able to find the book.

Given the price Amazon charges in Japan, ordering it with the discount may still be cheaper. The e-reader version is not yet being listed but should be by the end of December.

I hope you find this book as interesting to read as I found it to write. Just as a wave of entrepreneurship created Japan’s postwar “economic miracle,” so it will take a new generation of entrepreneurs to revive its stagnant economy. When Tokyo talks about business reform, it mostly focuses on the few thousand larger public corporations. While that is necessary, it is woefully insufficient.

Fortunately, major social, economic, and technological changes are opening more opportunities than Japan has seen in a generation. Generational changes in attitudes are leading more talented people to create new companies. E-commerce is enabling tens of thousands of newcomers to bypass the traditional distribution system. Talented women denied promotion opportunities at traditional firms are flocking to the new firms. Three decades of low growth have shown the need for change.

Still, progress remains an uphill climb because of resistance by powerful forces within both big business and the government. But neither business nor the government is monolithic.

The contest among these forces will determine Japan’s economic future

The book discusses a wide variety of topics that affect entrepreneurship: technological change, generational changes, gender relations, labor issues, low growth, globalization, political-economic history, culture, and education. It features cross-country comparisons in text and charts throughout the book.