The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of development of the distribution network at Toyo Kogyo in the postwar period, and discuss the differences between automobile manufacturers regarding automobile distribution.
The dealer network built by Toyo Kogyo had little capital compared to Toyota and Nissan Motor. Therefore Toyo Kogyo had to provide dealers with a large amount of funding for capital investment. Toyo Kogyo dealers were at a comparative disadvantage in terms of funding. It is conjectured that the lack of funding for dealers acted as a constraint, to a certain degree, on expansion of sales bases by Toyo Kogyo. On the other hand, the careful deployment of bases by dealers with large amounts of capital can be regarded as one factor underlying the competitive advantage of Toyota.
The wage system for salesmen was likely significant in promoting sales volume at Toyo Kogyo dealers. Saitama Mazda developed a wage system with a high sales margin, and salesmen were given incentives for increasing sales. The fact that a wage with system with a high sales margin was developed at Saitama Mazda has considerable significance in terms of research history. Previously, it was understood that, in the wage systems of dealers in the Japanese automobile industry, the base pay accounted for a high percentage of compensation and the sales margin was low. The case of Saitama Mazda suggests that there were differences between companies in Japan regarding the approach to sales margins.

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In this paper, I analyze the formation of marketing channel for two representatives of the Japanese automobile industry, Toyota and Nissan. The analysis is focused on the period immediately following world War II, which is from 1946 to 1947.
I carried out research on all 94 dealers for Toyota and Nissan during that period, with special attention paid to the identity of those dealers and distributors regulated in wartime, the so-called “Jihai”. This is due to the fact that these “Jihai” had the largest scale and monopolized the industry in each prefecture so we can suppose that significant resources were integrated into “Jihai”. In addition, I carried out research on the rapidity of establishment for new dealers under either Toyota or Nissan by comparing them. This is because it can express the aggres-siveness of both manufacturers' marketing channel strategies and a dealer's selection and decision-making regarding its long-term partner.
The conclusion of this paper suggests the following. (1) Much of the identity of “Jihai” can be seen in Toyota dealers. However, “Jihai” that held large market share in large cities had a tendency to change to that of Nissan. (2) Location of the manufacturers might have also had influenced the identity of dealers and “Jihai”. (3) Toyota dealers were established earlier than those of Nissan. (4) Especially in the prefectures or areas where Toyota dealers, with the identity of “Jihai”, were established earlier than those of Nissan, the start of Nissan dealership was delayed very much.

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The relationship between wartime regional controlled distributors called “Jihai” and postwar dealers has been said as a cause of Toyota's advantage of sales capability against Nissan. My previous research had already shown that the Toyota's domination on the competition setting up their dealers. Its evidences was the continuity as a company with trade name change between each Jihai and dealer, and rapidity of foundation of dealers. But it haven't surveyed the managerial resources inside of Jihai concretely. So in this research I focused on transfer of each executive from Jihai to postwar dealers of Toyota and Nissan.
Results of this research are below. In general, Jihai's choice which manufacturer it dealt with depended on the final consensus of whole executives. This means that each executive inside a Jihai had significant influence on the choice. This fact makes us presume that trade name change by Jihai was uneasy decision-making, and that Toyota won such a project, that is, recruiting competition of managerial human resources in number and in speed.
And the cases of 3 Toyota dealers which made those decisions very rapidly implied that they had sustainable and strong connections with, and loyalties to the previous partners throughout wartime. This is the common characteristic. 2 cases the dealers have been set up by means of trade name change of Jihai showed us the dynamically stabilized constructions of executives throughout wartime. On the other hand, from the case of dealer it hadn't been set up by trade name change of Jihai, however, we could realize the significance of Jihai as the sauce of managerial human resources again. But, the case implicated the necessity of reference to not only executives of each Jihai but also functions and business domain of them. This means that manysided survey of managerial resources of both of Jihai and newly founded dealers is quite important and meaningful for the comparative and historical research of the competition of marketing channel construction in automobile industry.

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