経営史学

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Until the beginning of the 1880s, most Japanese silk exports were to France. The French silk market, however, shrank after the French Panic of 1882, while the U.S. market expanded during the 1880s. In the United States, power looms were widely used in the silk industry, so the demand for even-quality silk was rising. Japanese manufacturers had to produce uniform filatures (machine-reeled silk) for export to the United States. Kaimeisha, which was the leading association of silk manufacturers in Suwa district, Nagano prefecture, had been producing silk for the French market and had relied on wholesale merchants in Yokohama for quality control. After the French Panic, Kaimeisha introduced the production system which offered incentives for the re-reeling and inspection of silk, thus succeeding in the production of uniform filatures, which it labeled with its own Kaimeisha trademark. In order to expand business, Kaimeisha obtained financing from wholesale merchants and local banks, which were relatively modern financial institutions.
Another silk manufacturers association, Kairyosha, followed suit and introduced a production system similar to Kaimeisha's. This second organization, however, was financed by traditional financial institutions and was managed by a rural moneylender. The moneylender's participation in management was detrimental to meeting the rising level of quality control required in the U.S. market. The moneylender demanded an increase in deliveries of silk by hiring new association members as he profited by lending them money to purchase cocoons and receiving discounts on members' deliveries. The situation was particularly disfavorable to quality control because membership to the association was not steady.

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