This paper discusses the career decision made by Sazo Idemitsu （1885─1981）, the founder of Idemitsu Kosan, Co., Ltd.（ 1940─）, upon his graduation from college, and the reason for his selecting Sakai Shokai, a private firm. According to Idemitsu, when he became an apprentice to Sakai Shokai immediately after his graduation, his former classmates insulted him for being “a disgrace to the college.” Through verification of this poor reputation of his career decision, we researched the preferences of graduates from Kobe Higher Commercial School concerning their career decisions over the period from the late 1900s to the mid-1910s. At that time, graduates had the option either to become a white collar worker at a modern company or to serve a premodern private firm as an apprentice.

Our research found that every year a few graduates from the college planned to join private firms and that it was not only Idemitsu who planned to undergo training in practical business at such a firm in order to prepare themselves for starting up their own businesses in the future. A few such graduates were determined to serve at private firms as an apprentice, although their number was limited. However, Idemitsu, who graduated from the college at the end of 1900s, belonged to the last generation who considered an apprenticeship as an effective means to learn about practical business.

In the mid-1910s, more than 10 graduates annually began to join Mitsui & Co., Ltd., one of Japan’s major trading companies. At the same time, the number of graduates who joined Suzuki & Co.（ 1874─1927）, which grew its business dramatically during World War I, also began increasing rapidly. The transition from the late 1900s to the mid-1910s was a turning point for both types of graduates : those who aspired to join modern companies and those who planned to serve at traditional private firms.

The Reformation of Bank and the Role of Bank’s President : A Case of Yōzō Itō, the President of the 35th Bank by Masanobu Mishina

This paper analyses the entrepreneurial activity of regional bank’s president in the situation of management reforms, focusing on the case of Yōzō Itō, the president of the 35th bank in Sizuoka prefecture from 1901 to 1904. At that time, the 35th bank ran short of the working capital caused by the loss due to immobilization and bad debts of funds for the bank’s staffs and parties. With respect to this situation, Yōzō Itō investigated the amount of the loss and the credit of the bankers, and tried to reorganize the lending system of each branch under the president. And, instead of making the largescale renewal of staffs, he employed some middle-managers, for example Isami Kogure and Kanjirō Matsuo by introduction of entrepreneurs who had graduated Keio University, Toyoji Wada and Tatsuo Yamamoto. Also, Yōzō Itō purchased stocks of Fuji-Bōseki Co. that was used as security of loan to Magoroku Adachi.

Yōzō Itō tried to write off the loss by the reduction of capital, but this plan failed by the opposition of shareholders. As a result he guitted president. From the above analysis, with pointing out the functions of the president in the regional bank in the late Meiji Era, this paper elucidated actual situation and function of the entrepreneurial activity of regional bank’s president.

This paper focuses on emerging processes of entrepreneurs who made business innovations during the Meiji era, when the modern society was formed, from the perspectives of entrepreneurial history and business history.

The individual data （home situation, educational background, processes to entrepreneurship, and types of innovation） of 46 entrepreneurs were analyzed, and common factors in their emerging processes were sought. As a finding, there were four types in the emerging process :（ 1） network type,（ 2） regional development type,（ 3） merchant type, and（ 4） technology type.

As for the network type, entrepreneurs utilized advantages of networking with government/ business leaders/ relatives to acquire advanced western knowledge （i.e. unique information for venturing） which was necessary for modern organization management. Regarding the regional development type, the entrepreneurial activities have characteristics of developing regional industries suitable for the times. Those entrepreneurs, who were mainly local elites playing official and influential roles in their regions, utilized information required for venturing that contributes to regional development （i.e. unique information for venturing） from local and political experts.

As for the merchant type, entrepreneurs were engaged to their merchant activities connected with opportunities for new innovative businesses. Those who became such merchants came mainly from farmers who aimed successful career and independence. In their works as merchants, they succeeded in business by acquiring the earliest information （i.e. unique information for venturing）. Finally in the technical type, entrepreneurs raised a business by using technologies acquired through skill acquisition and invention. This type often came from merchants, and as a part of management efforts, they aimed at the creation and invention of new products or technologies that had not existed in Japan so far. Here information on new western product/ technologies（ i.e. unique information for venturing） played a crucial role.

Access to such information for venturing above was a key for entrepreneurs who successfully created new modern businesses.

Transformation of Distribution Structure and Shipping Business Persons in the Meiji Era of Japan

The Cases of Nosaka Family and Shirogane Family

Satoru Nakanishi

This paper discusses how sailboat carriers managed at the Noheji Port in Aomori Prefec- ture, which was a base port for distant transportation in the early modern period, after sail- boat transportation between distant areas was replaced by steamship transportation. Since Noheji was not a port for regular steamers, connections with remote markets weakened as a result of the development of the regular steamship network, and although the size of the port relatively decreased. But the Noheji Port was linked to the expansion of the market in Hokkaido on the opposite shore, and it became a base of the underground transportation network centering on small steamships while taking advantage of the opening of the rail- way. The shipping industry in Noheji Port was flexible in dealing with the development of the Noheji economy ; for example, the Nosaka family had the branch family carry out soy sauce and miso brewing in the modern times, which organically linked the expansion of fish fertilizer production in Hokkaido with the expansion of miso and soy sauce brewing in the Noheji region. The Shirogane family also developed a new transportation route by sailing ships repeatedly between Hokkaido and Noheji, and contributed greatly to the formation of the underground transportation network. The development of the management of the ship- ping business persons in Noheji provided a major impetus for fluidizing the distribution sys- tem of fish fertilizer in Hokkaido and transforming the structure of the Hokkaido fishing in- dustry.

Shibusawa Keizō, the grandson of Shibusawa Eiichi, served as the Governor of the Bank of Japan during the Second World War and later became Japan’s Finance Minister in the postwar regime. In 1937, shortly after his grandfather’s death and before assuming his leadership roles, Keizō began channeling his passions into developing the concept for the Japan Business History Museum and preparing for the opening of the facility. Hoping to cover everything from Edo-period culture to the economic shifts and developmental changes that Japan experienced from the Bunsei era to the Meiji period, Keizō oversaw the collection of a wide variety of historical documents, paintings, photographs, materials, and other items to chronicle the country’s progression. The initiative eventually amassed 38,000 pieces in 11 different categories （paintings, maps, product rankings, paper money, materials, documents, books, advertisements, and photographs, among others）, with 13,911 paintings, materials, and advertisements （accounting for 61,964 images） now available in digital formats at the National Institute of Japanese Literature. The process of analyzing this extensive collection holds immense potential for outlining a new approach to business history.

Keizō’s background helped mold his strong interests in and unique perspectives on both economic and business history. In addition to writing “Honpō kōgyō-shi ni kan suru ichikōsatsu”［A consideration of Japanese industrial history］ as his graduation thesis for the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, for example, Keizō also shared a long, deep friendship with fellow classmate and eminent economic scholar Tsuchiya Takao. The vision for the Japanese Business History Museum and its collection of materials also stemmed from Keizō’s connections with folklorists and his awareness of the relevant issues. By examining these roots of the conceptualization, along with items reflecting popular economic life and Keizō’s statements pertaining to the use of visual information, this paper analyzes Keizō’s socioeconomic philosophy and proposes a new economic and business history methodology that incorporates nonverbal resources.

This paper explores self-renewal of regional specialization in the production center on the basis of a study for Arita porcelain production center in Japan. Arita is the birthplace of porcelain in Japan. In Arita, a few core porcelain producers, for instance Koransya, Fukagawaseiji, Kakiemon, and Imaemon, have taken the responsibility to refine the skills and keep its tradition after Meiji Restoration. The others respect the core porcelain producers to rule the region as a leader. Arita, which had been the major production center of the business tableware, has been in recession due to an economic crisis and the emergence of imported ceramics in recent years. Arita production center, however, successfully diversified its product categories and tried to make progress for the self-renewal of its regional specialization, which were driven by entrepreneurship of a leading group of the frontier porcelain producers and wholesalers.

This paper insists that the frontier porcelain producers’ and wholesalers’ entrepreneurship stimulated self-renewal of regional specialization. It also argues that the unwritten competition rule, preventing cut throat competition, served as a catalyst to keep the region as a porcelain production center alive. Each regional specialization has been supported by these unwritten rules on the basis of the system of encouraging the local talent.

COVID─19 has expanded from early 2020 rapidly and has dramatically revealed the negative aspects of accelerated globalization and pursuit of mobility. In the Age of Living with COVID─19, there will be increasing urgency to rebuild society in a decentralized form, to ensure the independence and resilience of regional cities and communities in Japan.

This paper explores the role of family business in regional revitalization by focusing on the relationship between the characteristics of the socioemotional wealth of the family business and entrepreneurship.

In order to create regional revitalization, innovation that creates economic and social value by taking advantage of regional characteristics is necessary. This and other elements of regional strength, such as tradition-based innovation and entrepreneurship, the curbing of excessive competition such as cutthroat competition, and a shift from quantitative growth to qualitative growth, are the antithesis of the various problems of modern society that must be reflected on. The key is the producers’ sense of belonging and attachment to the region: the region and their own survival are perceived as two sides of the same coin.

This paper insists that the leading force behind regional revitalization is a family business that conducts business succession in the region over a long period of time, retains SEW, and has indigenousness and legitimacy. Family business is expected to play a role in contributing to the realization of a decentralized society as a driving force for an independent local economy.