A Population of Globalizing Japanese LMEs

This chapter is based initially on data available for fiscal 2004. It was around this time that Japan was hitting a sort of peak in the Japanese way of doing things. For a start, the prolonged recession going back to the advent of the 1990s had been buried and the country had recovered its economic dynamism and sense of purpose. Part of the motivation for this was a reassessment of what Japan stood for in itself and within the world economy. First and foremost, it had been concluded, Japan was the land of monozukuri, the land of high-quality production. This refurbished self-differentiation in turn was inducing a reinterpretation of what globalization meant for Japan and how it could be handled. Gone was the feverish exit in the quest of cheap factors of production. Less acute were the fears of the alien prescription of a forced march overseas. Increasingly greenfield plant investment was as likely to be back in Japan as abroad. Advanced automation and communications coupled with a renewed appreciation of the advantages inherent in the high levels of integration of specialized suppliers and well-trained personnel encouraged this inclination.