文化と企業者活動についての諸理論の検討

M・ウェーバー以後の理論的展開

抄録

The tenth annual meeting of the Business History Society of Japan was held at the University of Tokyo on the 5 th and 6 th of October 1974. On the first day we had a free-topic session as usual and twelve papers were reported. All of the five papers in this special issue were read at the common-topic session on the second day of the meeting.
In the opening address, professor Keiichiro Nakagawa of the University of Tokyo, who was one of the organizers of the latter session, emphasized the significance of the study on “Cultural Structure and Entrepreneurship” for us, Japanese business historians. Professor Nakagawa stated that after the Vietnam War American business historians have lost interest in this kind of study, but, he continued, we should actively continue to pursue it.
Professor Hiroshi Hazama of Tokyo Kyoiku University explained some sociological and psychological approaches to the relationship between entrepreneurship and cultural factors, specifically entrepreneurial or managerial ideologies and cultural values, following Max Weber's thesis. He also examined the applicability of these approaches, which were arguments founded on facts of Western societies, to the Japanese society.
Professor Johannes Hirschmeier of Nanzan University and professor Tsunehiko Yui of Meiji University clarified the relationship between the traditional value system and businesses in the process of industrialization in Japan. Professor Yui expressed a noteworthy hypothesis on the traditional value system in the Tokugawa era and referred to impacts of the system on business activities after the Meiji era. Professor Hirschmeier explained the characteristics of the “spirit of capitalism” in Japan compared with that in Western countries.
Professor Kazuo Sugiyama of Seikei University presented the result of his close investigation concerning financial and investment behaviors of cotton-spinning and railway companies in the Meiji era. These behaviors were considered not separately but as a complete process from the decision-making on investment by top management to the setting of equipments they are related to different stages of development of companies and to their cultural background.
The final speaker, professor Shigeaki Yasuoka of Doshisha University, pointed out the conditions of business control of the Zaibatu by monopolistic ownership before World War II in Japan with historical and cultural views. He especially made clear the reason why the Zaibatu, which had grown up in the Tokugawa era or in early Meiji, limited the investors of their head companies to their families and why they could control many modern companies though they had kept premodern traits.
The panel discussion on the common topic was presided by professor Kin-ichiro Toba of Waseda University and professor Hidemasa Morikawa of Hosei University.