Free Book Chapter Through Sept. 20th

Chapter 1 -- Entrepreneurship: From Effervescence to Rigidity

If Japan had never experienced an effervescence of entrepreneurship, then trying to implant it would be like grafting an alien practice onto inhospitable turf. In reality, modern Japan has experienced two extended bursts of entrepreneurship. Many of today’s corporate elephants began as gazelles—high-growth small and medium enterprises—in the first entrepreneurial burst, from 1868 through 1926, named the Meiji and Taisho eras after the emperors then reigning. When WWII ended, Japan had lost a third of its factories and housing. Reconstruction and the drive to catch up drew in new companies. Of the 120 large electronics firms in 1979—those with at least 300 employees—nearly half had still been SMEs in 1955. In other words, from 1955 to 1979 it was still possible for an SME to become a large firm within just a couple of decades. Moderately large challengers like Seiko and Sharp, SONY and Honda, could become giants, while creating products that conquered the world, and drove Japan’s “economic miracle.” During the 1953–1973 high-growth era, Japan raised itself from a poor agricultural country to an industrial. Per capita GDP increased five-fold from a level that, in 1953, was the same as a poor African country today.

            If Japan enjoyed such entrepreneurial effervescence in the past, there’s no reason it’s impossible for it to do it again. Its current arrangements are not immutable artifacts of an age-old Japanese mindset; rather, they are products of history, institutions, and power, of decisions that mostly made sense when they were made, but whose time has passed.

            So (with some adjustments) begins Chapter One of my book, The Contest for Japan’s Economic Future: Entrepreneurs Vs. Corporate Giants. Following an Introduction that provides an overview of the book as a whole, this chapter tells the story of how entrepreneurship, in tandem with industrial policy, created the postwar economic miracle. It highlights the efforts of several key individuals and shows how they combined guts, technical brilliance, and commercial genius to propel their companies and Japan to the top of the heap. Then, it shows how and why the system ossified.

            Oxford University Press is offering this chapter for free, but only through September 20^th. There is no need for payment, subscription, or registration.

Click Here for the Digital flyer and it should bring up a flyer in PDF. Then scroll down to the button saying Read the Free Chapter and click on that. You should get the chapter; if it asks you to register, please let me know in the comments section.

If you’re at a university or have access to a business library, recommend it to your librarian!