2004 Volume 2 Pages 100-111
This paper explores how Japanese competitive SMEs are recovering from their recent predicaments that have been caused by an avalanche of Chinese products into the Japanese market by looking at five Japanese clothing companies. The main findings are as follows: 1) even within the Japanese garment market, the sources of value added differ in each market segment, 2) it is the sources of value added which affect the decision of firms regarding the degree of the digitalization of intra-firm information flow and processing, 3) firms that have highly digitalized information are able to determine the production location under fewer constraints than those do not, 4) among firms that prefer highly digitalized information flow and processing, those which have sophisticated HRM are likely to locate their production overseas, while others prefer reconstructing their domestic factories.
