京セラの電子部品事業史とその周辺

―1980年代までの動向を中心に―

抄録

Kyocera has been developing for over 60 years since its foundation in 1959 by pursuing a business diversification strategy. To understand how the company developed its organizational characteristics and competitive advantages, its multifaceted business structure must be disassembled into individual businesses because each business has its own external environment in terms of market, rivals, and direction of development. Only in this way can we analyze their interactions as a whole. As a part of this challenging research task, this study focuses on Kyocera’s electronics components business such as capacitors, printer heads and so on. Not only the primary sources at the company such as the company’s newsletter “Keiten Aijin” but also various external materials were used in this study to evaluate the company’s activities objectively.

In the initial period of the business, Kyocera was positioned as a “latecomer” in the market because many of its rivals had started their electronics components business earlier and enjoyed the explosive upsurge of market demand for electronics components for assembling radios and televisions in the 1950’s, just before Kyocera’s foundation. In the process of overcoming such adversity, Kyocera selected markets and timing to enter very carefully to avoid fierce price competition and to pursue a high value-added strategy based on its excellent “fine ceramics” technology.

Specially for Kyocera, it is indispensable to focus on the role of the founder of the company, Kazuo Inamori. His successors in the business adhered to Inamori’s policy and developed their ceramic technology instead of engaging in the business of electronic device assembly which looked more profitable at that time. As a result, the company has achieved a top class market share and its products are highly evaluated by many customers globally.