2023 年 40 巻 p. 44-63
This paper asserts that the next challenge for business history research is to clarify, with specific examples, the functions of trading companies in generating export transactions. I address this issue here by clarifying the functions of trading companies employed by American oil companies as they developed their businesses in the emerging high-risk market of Japan and expanded their global business activities during the interwar period. In particular, I examine the trading company functions that Mitsubishi Trading Company (Mitsubishi Shōji Kaisha, MSK) provided to the Associated Oil Company. The paper then focuses on the trade of crude and fuel oil, an often overlooked area of trade in existing studies. Moreover, I explore why Associated Oil and MSK were able to maintain a substantial share of the Japanese market for crude and fuel oil by examining their shift in trading methods from commission to proprietary trading. The paper concludes that one of the reasons for MSK’s success was that it took over the costs and risks that Associated Oil should have borne under their original contract while at the same time delegating to itself, with its greater knowledge of local conditions and information, the discretionary power to enter these transactions.
