It is from 1900 onward that modern cane sugar manufacturing companies were founded in Japan, when Taiwan Sugar Manufacturing Corporation was established in Taiwan, then a Japanese colony. As early as 1865, the Satsuma clan introduced modern cane sugar manufacturing technology from Britain and Holland. Since the Meiji Restoration, though the Meiji government also transferred various kinds of modern sugar technologies from the West, and to some extent acquired mechanical engineering technology for beet sugar at Monbetsu Seitosho (beet sugar manufacturing company) in Hokkaido, cane sugar technology transfer was unsuccessful because sugar-cane cultivation was not very suitable for the Japanese climate. As a consequence of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, however, China was forced to cede Taiwan to Japan. Taiwan's climate was very suitable for sugar-cane cultivation.
Since around 1899, the Government General of Taiwan and Mitsui Bussan formed a project to establish a modern cane sugar manufacturing company. They spent a mere two or three years to accomplish this project. This paper investigates the reasons for such a short time span between the project's inception and its accomplishment.

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In consumer chemical industry, the functions near the market, such as distribution, sales and a part of product development, play a key role in international competition. Kao Corporation is said to have excellent production technology and steady marketing ability, but didn't finally succeed in international market. In this paper, we examine the adaptation process of Kao Thailand in attention with its product development, price policy, distribution system, investment on advertisement and promotion.
In the 1960-80s, there were many trials and problems in the process of adaptation. Kao tried to build direct sales system to sell in local area, but because of the needs of training on sales staff, short of product line, direct sales system remained insufficient. At the same time, there was difficulty in development of compounding technology for the Thai market because of the difference of social and natural climates with Japan. These problems were mainly due to the relation with joint-venture partner, Taisin Group. Kao can't make use of the know-how and resources of Taisin, which contributed on the diffusion of Kao's shampoo in the Thai market. But in the aspect of production technology, Kao localized its production process including production of raw materials and transferred brand-new chemical plant from Japan.
In the late 80s, with the establishment of research facilities, Kao realized adaptive price policy and compounding technology in shampoo business. But the amount of investment on advertisement on shampoo market was few until quite recently. On the other hand, success of 'concentrated detergent', the main product of Kao, was limited because compounding technology was based on Japanese-standard. Throughout these times, decision-making process was centralized to the Japanese headquarter. Thai specific conditions were not easily understandable by Japanese top managers.
Kao has succeed in localization of production technology, often the sources of competitive edge in Japan, but had problems in adaptation of its product and marketing in Thailand. Adaptation of technology and organization is key factor in local, at the same time, global competition.

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This article examines the evolution of Korean retail forms since the 1970s and compares them to those in Japan. Particular emphasis is placed on the issues of changing markets, competition among retail forms, and its relation to the operating system.
First, the discussion focuses on supermarkets in Korea during the 1970s and reveals why, in contrast to Japanized GMS (General Merchandise Store) transformation, supermarkets underwent low growth. Two reasons are given for this : the presence of the traditional market as a powerful competitor to the supermarket, and the weakness of the wholesale market compared to its Japanese counterpart.
These characteristics of the Korean market serve to underpin the second issue, namely the growth of department stores from the late 1980s to the early 1990s during the emergence of the mass market. In the absence of competition from other modernized retailing, department stores exhibited significant retail growth through the adoption of multiple store operation and personnel dispatch systems.
The third issue is about the rapid growth of convenience and discount stores since the 1990s. This part examines why, despite contradictory retail types in terms of margin and location, the two retail forms were introduced and developed around the same time. The year 1990 is identified as a watershed year in that it was around then that producers began to comply with retail price proposals and the government initiated the competition principal in the domestic retail market for foreign companies.
This article clearly demonstrates that although the dynamics of retail forms in later developed country show retail innovations, plural paths of adaptation in each retail form are created across national boundaries because of differences in market, competition, and operating system.

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