After World War I, Japanese shipping suffered for a long time from an excess of tonnage and severe competition. How could Japanese shipping companies cope with the depression when they were mostly latecomers with less cargo and with small company size? The smaller trampers and owners were disadvantaged by these circumstances because they could not keep sufficient volumes of cargo to operate their ships. Many of them, of course, went bankrupt. But a considerably large number of small companies survived, changing their strategies; some of them found cargo in Near Seas, and others specialised in ownership. It was the growing demands of in the chartering market that offered them new business opportunities.
S. Tsutsui and Kaiyo Steamship Co., which he established later, were also small owners. Although a very small owner, he became acquainted with G. Hori, a broker in Yamashita and achieved steady growth, chartering out his ship mainly to Yamashita. Kaiyo Steamship took advantage of the government's “scrap and build policy” and acquired bigger ships, which brought good performance to its business. Kaiyo Steamship grew steadily even under the wartime economic controls and built new ships. They chartered them out to the shipping authority and lost most of them in Japan's defeat in World War II.
The growth of small owners was, undoubtedly, a consequence of the development of Japanese shipping. I would like to put emphasis, however, on their contribution. Operators could not have extended their business rapidly and widely without chartering significant tonnage at greatly reduced fees, because they had to play second fiddle in the world shipping market. From this point of view, the activities of small owners are one characteristic of Japanese shipping, though it was evident not only in shipping but also in most manufacturing industries.

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This paper analyzes the process of the Kawasaki strike, which lasted from December 1947 to July 1948, Nishiyama Yataro, later president of Kawasaki Steel, was the director of the steelworks divisions of Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The main operation was in the Fukiai district of Kobe. Nishiyama faced corporate restructuring in a tug-of-war between the management and the radicalized union at Fukiai.
The militant union demanded so large a role in management as to infringe on corporate leadership. The national labor federation, Sanbetsu, which was organized by the the Japan Communist Party, and the steel industry arm of Sanbetsu, Zentetsuro, were behind this labor movement. The union had won contracts (labor agreements) along the Sanbetsu model and was influenced by the communist fraction. Japan Federation of Employers' Association, Nikkeiren, identified the Kawasaki strike as a crucial struggle with the enemy, which it identified as communism.
In this strike, Nishiyama organized staff and workers to fight the militant agitation that had taken over the union. During the struggle, the membership of the militant “first” union declined, and the membership of the cooperative “second” union rapidly increased. Thus, he broke the radical union and succeeded in formating a new and loyal union.
Moreover, this paper points out that this strike marked a turning point for relations between management and union. In 1949, Nishiyama won new labor agreements to keep the industry peace and raise productivity. And he lead Kawasaki Steel, turning it into a major integrated iron and steel production in the 1950s.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the corporate governance structure of non-zaibatu companies in 1920s Japan. Takahashi Kamekichi, Kabushikigaisha Boukoku Ron (1930), Tohou Denryoku Shi (Tohou Electric Power History, 1962) and so on, are very instructive. They observed that Japanese companies in those days operated on short-range planning and showed unusually high pay-out ratios, up to nearly 70%, neglecting sufficient internal reserves, depreciation, and investment for plants and equipment.
This paper takes the so-called institutional approach, focusing especially on the accounting system and laws at that time and places special emphasis on the following two issues.
First, surprisingly old Japanese companies used the market price accounting system from 1893 to 1949, as do today's Japanese companies since 2001. But the new market price accounting system is confined to only financial instruments, and valuation profits cannot be paid out as dividends. On the contrary, the old market price accounting covered all assets and valuation profits were appropriated as dividends. According to Takahashi (1930), Japanese companies in the 1920s gained valuation profits from fixed assets and clearance assets as well as stocks, and they paid almost all of them out as dividends. Consequently, they lacked in long-term planning and suffered from ineffective management. It is difficult to say that they were mature going concerns.
Second, between 1893 and 1938, an accordance of ownership and control was commonly found within Japanese companies under the Commercial Law system, which stipulated that a director and auditor must be a stockholder. Moreover, there were both a few large block large shareholders and many small shareholders. On the one hand, the block shareholders occupied executive posts of the within the companies. According to Tohou Denryoku Shi, they enjoyed controlling the company profits. On the other hand, many small shareholders were silent or weak, and shareholders' meetings were meaningless, as today's are. Consequently, both could not work as monitors for their companies. It is evident that this sort of image of Japanese companies was quite different from Berle & Means's separation of ownership and control.
In conclusion, the 1920s Japanese companies were not mature going concerns, and their shareholders did not function as monitors at all. Thus they cannot be classified as the Anglo-Saxon corporate types.

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The purpose of this paper is to show the reason why Suntory was able to innovate on a distribution channel in the Shanghai Beer industry. Suntory has had strong marketing skills and high technology in beer production in Japan. From 1984, Suntory's Chinese Business began in earnest. China Jiangsu Suntory Foods became the number one beer maker of Jiangsu Province, and Suntory developed skills in the management of a Chinese beer company. These Chinese business skill work as the core competence of Suntory's business in China. In 1996, Suntory established Shanghai Suntory Brewing and started a beer business in Shanghai. Though the Chinese business skills worked well, they were not good enough to make Suntory Shanghai's top beer maker. The marketing skills and knowledge of the beer market's competence, which were obtained in Japan, were needed. From 1997, Chinese business skills combined with marketing skills helped the rapid increase in Suntory beer sales. Suntory has been the number one beer maker in Shanghai since 1999. Suntory's technology and management skills have been adjusted to the Chinese market and work well in China. The adjustment process distinguishes Suntory from others and contributed to Suntory's to success in distribution innovation.

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