It has by now become accepted theory that success or failure as well as the particular course of the industrialization process is strongly influenced by cultural values. But often enough the problem is simplified by stressing the need to replace “traditional” (native) values with “rational” (Western) ones, implying that only the Western type mentality is capable of becoming the carrier of the industrialization process. I take the position that within the constraints of economic and technical conditions, very different value patterns which are “traditional” to that country, can become successful bases for industrialization and modernization. This means of course that the same technological conditions can and do permit different economic behavior patterns. I establish this point by comparing both the values and the behavior patterns of Japan and the west in the pre-industrial and the industrial stage.
As basic cultural values I take for the West the well-known Primacy of Reason and Supremacy of the Individual over the group. For Japan I take very opposite, the Primacy of Harmony and the Supremacy of the Group over the individual. I indicate how these divergent cultural values could develop and how they manifest themselves. The impact of these principles upon economic behavior prior to and during the seccessful industrialization periods is shown in some detail, using rather well-known material from economic and management history. Specifically, three aspects of economic behavior are studied, each of them logically necessary for industrialization : (a) The process of innovation and destruction ; (b) the process of competition ; (c) the goal-setting. I try to show that in each of these three aspects of economic change, there was a marked difference in approach between the West and Japan, and that this difference can clearly be reduced to the prevalence of the respective cultural values.
While maintaining the strong persistence of traditional values during, and their positive contribution for the success of the industrialization process, I also agree that technology itself is constantly, albeit gradually, reshaping those values in both the West and Japan, and that the two are moving gradually closer together.

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The pay roll books of the McCormick works in Chicago show us the fact that, through the later part of the nineteenth century, the production of the reaping machine has been done with a kind of seasonal rhythm reached the peak in June. The peak was then followed by the sharp decline in employment which was practiced through a layoff, especilly, of the unskilled workers.
Although this came from the historical fact that the reaper production was linked with the harvest season of the crops such as winter wheat, a layoff was, eventually, institutionalized in the industry.
This paper intends to throw some lights on the labor management and examine the entrepreneurial significance of the layoff system on the growth of the enterprise.

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R. L. Nelson and S. R. Reid pointed out that the first wave of the major merger movementes in the United States occurred at the turn of the century. This first wave, so-called “Trust Movement”, resulted in a high degree of concentration and corporationism in many industries, and through the movement, business finance in Amirica became gradually systematized.
W. H. Lough was a pioneer in the field of business finace at that time and made a great contribution to its systematization. Lough's theory, which was developed in his two books, Corporation Finance (1909) and Business Finance (1917), dealt, first, with the raising of initial capital needed for business enterprise, together with its proper apportionment for plant, equipment, and working capital second, with the accurate determination of profits and reserves, and the enlargement of capital permanently invested.
A matter of primary concern for me was how his essential assertions mentioned above was developed in the changing economic conditions of those days. After summarizing Lough's theory, I examined the effectiveness of his method by some case studies.

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