Why is it that Japanese manufacturers can produce such a great variety of goods with breathtaking speed and quality while outsourcing so extensively? Strategic Industrial Sourcing provides the first comprehensive look at the evolution of a powerful system of supplier relations in Japan. Indeed, supplier relations are at the heart of world-class manufacturing in Japan's two most successful industries, automobiles and electronics.
Through a path-breaking exploration of the historical and current practices of subcontracting in Japan as well as other advanced economies, Toshihiro Nishiguchi reveals the shortcomings of existing theories of contractual relations. A wealth of evidence shows that current Japanese sub-contracting practices are a product of complex interactions among socioeconomic, political, technological, and firm-level strategic factors. Taking issue with conventional thinking, this book questions the notion that the practices that have made Japanese firms successful are a direct result of national culture. Rather, it is argued that those practices amount to a new paradigm of collaborative manufacturing that can be adopted by firms in other industrial societies.
A product of more than eight years of research, hundreds of field visits, and more than one thousand interviews with managers of firms in fourteen countries including Japan, the United States, and Britain, this book brings original insight to the historical, institutional, and economic development of a unique manufacturing system that has enabled Japanese firms to outperform their competitors in key markets. Based on principles of inter-firm collaboration and mutual problem solving, this revolutionary system, analyzed in depth in the automobile and electronics industries, drives core firms and their subcontractors toward continuous improvement in product quality, cost control, and technological excellence. Strategic Industrial Sourcing reveals the compelling logic behind these relationships, to present a new model of economic organization that has profound implications for future performance of all industrial societies.
This landmark work urges a fundamental rethinking of much received wisdom concerning Japanese competitiveness and is essential reading for serious academics and managers concerned with competing industrial systems.
Industry Reviews
"One of the most interesting parts of Nishiguchi's descriptions is his contrast of Japanese-style managers' attitudes toward suppliers with the attitudes of American and British managers whose firms have not adopted these practices...No amount of asset flexibility can substitute for a system of flexible employees such as is described in Strategic Industrial Sourcing. Management scholars fail to see the true contours of the Japanese business landscape
if the reality of these business arrangements is ignored."--Academy of Management Review
"Based on eight years of research and over 1,000 interviews, Nishiguchi's book provides a detailed and well-balanced account of why subcontracting persists in Japan more than in other countries and how it has contributed to Japan's economic success story."--Contemporary Sociology
"Constitutes a definitive study of Japanese subcontracting, supported by numerous tables and figures, and extending in coverage to Europe and the US....One of the important contributions of the book is its proof of cross-cultural applicability of the Japanese system. This work also contains rich and captivating anecdotal evidence. Highly recommended."--Choice
"I have always thought that in the long run the Japanese system of subcontracting is beneficial to all parties... I am grateful that Dr. Nishiguchi, through his painstaking research, breaks down myths about the Japanese subcontracting system."--Fujio Cho, President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing U.S.A.
"The coordination of the supply chain has always been the secret weapon of the best Japanese firms. In this remarkable volume Toshihiro Nishiguchi finally explains how they do it. Any Western manager who fails to read, indeed to study this book, is passing up an extraordinary opportunity to improve industrial performance. "--James P. Womack, Coauthor of The Machine that Changed the World
"One of the most interesting parts of Nishiguchi's descriptions is his contrast of Japanese-style managers' attitudes toward suppliers with the attitudes of American and British managers whose firms have not adopted these practices...No amount of asset flexibility can substitute for a system of flexible employees such as is described in Strategic Industrial Sourcing. Management scholars fail to see the true contours of the Japanese business landscape
if the reality of these business arrangements is ignored."--Academy of Management Review
"Based on eight years of research and over 1,000 interviews, Nishiguchi's book provides a detailed and well-balanced account of why subcontracting persists in Japan more than in other countries and how it has contributed to Japan's economic success story."--Contemporary Sociology
"Constitutes a definitive study of Japanese subcontracting, supported by numerous tables and figures, and extending in coverage to Europe and the US....One of the important contributions of the book is its proof of cross-cultural applicability of the Japanese system. This work also contains rich and captivating anecdotal evidence. Highly recommended."--Choice
"I have always thought that in the long run the Japanese system of subcontracting is beneficial to all parties... I am grateful that Dr. Nishiguchi, through his painstaking research, breaks down myths about the Japanese subcontracting system."--Fujio Cho, President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing U.S.A.
"The coordination of the supply chain has always been the secret weapon of the best Japanese firms. In this remarkable volume Toshihiro Nishiguchi finally explains how they do it. Any Western manager who fails to read, indeed to study this book, is passing up an extraordinary opportunity to improve industrial performance. "--James P. Womack, Coauthor of The Machine that Changed the World
"Japanese subcontractors play a critical role in manufacturing as well as product development... Nishiguchi's book does an excellent job of bringing together history and contemporary reality, and is a superb contribution to the literature on Japanese management."--Michael A. Cusumano, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Nishiguchi's work on suppliers in Japan is both provocative and compelling. It sets the standard against which others will be measured."--Kim B. Clark, Harvard University
"Dispels our self-protective myths about Japanese subcontracting: it is a vital part of their competitive success, and contributes more to worker and community welfare than our fixation on price competition."--Charles Perrow, Yale University
"It is impossible to understand Japanese manufacturing without understanding the Japanese system of subcontracting; and, in the absence of years of personal experience, it is impossible to have anything like a detailed grasp of the evolution, operation, and diversity of that system without reading Strategic Industrial Sourcing. Toshihiro Nishiguchi has written both the most empirically detailed study of Japanese subcontracting and the theoretically
most sophisticated treatment of the debates concerning its interpretation. This is an authoritative work."--Charles F. Sabel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
