2013 年 46 巻 5 号 p. 29-47
This paper is an analysis of how the competitive advantages of industrial agglomerations can be strengthened by the networks that exist between the firms within them, using as a case study the Okayama jeans agglomeration. The manfacturers in this example are able to supply jeans flexibly, according to the demands of the market, through close−knit interactions between the branded jeans companies and their preferred specialist supplier companies within the agglomeration network. At the same time, similar interactions taking place across the entire network ensure a sustainable level of production is maintained for the agglomeration as a whole. Based on the above, we can formulate a hypothesis about the factors that help to support the advantages of industrial agglomerations.