2017 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 114-119
This research explores why some keiretsu have been maintained while others have been dismantled in the Japanese auto industry. Drawing on Asanuma's (1989, 1994) argument that the relation-specific skill consists of the surface layer and the basic layer, we propose that the keiretsu that could have the suppliers develop and improve the basic-layer skill and thus enable them to supply for non-keiretsu OEMs would survive. Some preliminary empirical evidence to support the proposition, derived from the panel data on OEM-supplier transactions for 54 components over thirty years from 1984 to 2008 in the Japanese auto industry, is presented.
