1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807273903321

Autore

Anchordoguy Marie

Titolo

Reprogramming Japan : the high tech crisis under communitarian capitalism / / Marie Anchordoguy

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, New York : , : Cornell University Press, , 2005

ISBN

1-5017-0085-5

1-5017-0086-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (275 p.)

Collana

Cornell studies in political economy

Disciplina

330.952/05

Soggetti

High technology industries - Japan

Capitalism - Social aspects - Japan

Industrial policy - Japan

Japan Economic conditions 1989-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

The dynamics of communitarian capitalism -- Norms and institutions -- Telephone titan -- Telecommunications : obsolete institutions -- Computers : cooperation or competition? -- Software : programmed for failure -- Semiconductors : from boom to bust -- Crisis in communitarian capitalism.

Sommario/riassunto

How have state policies influenced the development of Japan's telecommunications, computer hardware, computer software, and semiconductor industries and their stagnation since the 1990's? Marie Anchordoguy's book examines how the performance of these industries and the economy as a whole are affected by the socially embedded nature of Japan's capitalist system, which she calls "communitarian capitalism."Reprogramming Japan shows how the institutions and policies that emerged during and after World War II to maintain communitarian norms, such as the lifetime employment system, seniority-based wages, enterprise unions, a centralized credit-based financial system, industrial groups, the main bank corporate governance system, and industrial policies, helped promote high tech industries. When conditions shifted in the 1980's and 1990's, these institutions and policies did not suit the new environment, in which



technological change was rapid and unpredictable and foreign products could no longer be legally reverse-engineered.Despite economic stagnation, leaders were slow to change because of deep social commitments. Once the crisis became acute, the bureaucracy and corporate leaders started to contest and modify key institutions and practices. Rather than change at different times according to their specific economic interests, Japanese firms and the state have made similar slow, incremental changes.