Research On The Transformation Of The Declining Industries In Postwar Japan

The phenomenon of the declining industry which is determined by the basic rules of the industrial emergence, development, maturity, declining,is the inevitable result of the industrial orderly turnover.Industrial recession is the inevitable links in the industrial life cycle, and it is the general economic phenomenon in the economic development.As forms of existing,the main characteristics of the declining industry is"declined but not fatal".The industry encountered obstacles in its development,but generally its demise was not appearance in economic growth. The declining industry meaned that its contribution to the development of economy showed downward trend compared with other industries,it conversed from leading industry to non-leading industry.The declining industry already could not play a major role in the development of economy,but it was not completely withdraw from the economic development,it was still an indispensable component of the industrial structure,and it had an important impact on economic growth,even influenced economic security and the coutry's security.As a result,we must be concerned about the declining industrial transformation in every stage of economic development.The declining industry may be make others declined through mutual contacts between industries, caused the economic development of the country or the region that had the declining industries growing difficultly,ultimately lowered the level of economic growth.If the declining industry could be transformated smoothly,that would make idle resources in it smoothly transfered, so that the growing industries that urgently needed resources could achieve the development of time and space. It will determine industrial transformating and upgrading process, even the prospects of economic growth in a country to a large extent. However, the recession is the antithesis of prosperity,this is a contradiction in the process of economic growth.Therefor, seeking a solution to the contradiction,resolving the hazards that produced by the declining industry, determines the stability of society.Measuses that applied transformate the declining industry to the incentive of upgrading the industrial structure,and ultimately promote economic growth speed, is the issues that people must face in economic development of each stage.Japan shortened the"natural"evolutionary process of the declining industrial transformation and speeded up the industrial restructuring in the shortest time in order to realize the strategy of overtaking Europe and the United States.Thus Japanese government implemented a strong intervention.It can be said that Japan was different from countries such as Britain and the United States which mainly relied on market mechanisms in promoting the declining industrial transformated.Therefore,this paper exemplifying Japan may make up for the current defects of the theory in reaseaching the declining industrial transformation.The leading industry was different in each stage of ecnomic development since the World Warâ…¡in Japan.That meaned some leading industries that once made significant contributions to the economic development gradually declined.They would might produce kinds of negative consequences.Therefore,how to promote the declining industris smoothly transformed was a severe challenge.If the declining industris could not be transformed,which would hinder the economic development of Japan.It was important experiences that Japan realized the strategy of overtaking devoleped coutries through promoteing the declining industris smoothly transformed.The experiences of the declining industrial transformation in Japan has important enlightenment to China.It can help China to maintain healthily and continually fast development in economic growing process.Moreover,the paper explored the strategic innovation of Japanese enterprise in declining industry.It could provide rich inspiration to the strategic management of the Chinese enterprise.This paper explored the declining industrial transformation in postwar Japan mainly including textile,steel and shipbuilding industries.Textile,steel and shipbuilding industries played a major role as leading industries in Japan's economic recovery and growth after The Second War.The impact of these declining industies on the economy was wide and durable.This paper mainly applied system method, the combining of empirical and normative method.It analysed the formation of declining industries in postwar Japan and discussed the policies and measures that the Japanese government implemented for promoting industrial transformation.At the same time it discussed the strategic choice when enterprises facing industry recession,as well as analysed the important role of the Japanese industry associations and the Genaral Trading Companies(GTC) in the process of industrial transformation. The Japanese government adopted kinds of policies including the short-term and the long-term policy when industries declined, as well as the Japanese industry associations and the GTC provided impetus and assistance.That not only maintained the stable social order and the political scene in the process of the the declining industrial transformation,guaranteed Japan not to deviate the strategy of overtaking developed countries,and created the essential condition for implementing the strategy.Moreover,the idle resources in declining industry were shifted smoothly,it enabled the fast growth of the growing industry to obtain enough resources, the growing industry also could expand producing scale in short time.That also advanced the rationalization and the scale of industrial structure in Japan.Otherwise it provided the right moment to transform the way of economic growth and guaranteed the Japanese economy to develop continually fast.The declining industrial transformation was completed fastly and effectively in Japan.It was the important impetus factor for realizing the strategy of overtaking developed countries in less than 30 years and maintaining the second status in the world after that time.The textile, steel and shipbuilding industries that declined had also made noticeable progress.The situation of worsening profit,the support and the guidance from Japanese government,as well as the assistance of the Japanese industry associations and the GTC,enabled the textile, steel and shipbuilding enterprises to carry on the strategic innovation, optimize organizational structure, carry out technological innovation.Thus the textile, the steel and the shipbuilding enterprises in Japan has affectively achieved the industrial innovation ability. These enterprises has strongly competitive power in highly added value realm of itselves and other industrial areas.This constituted the solid material base for realizing the goal of overtaking developed coutries.Even after that,the textile, the steel and the shipbuilding industries still do important attribute for Japan to maintain the second status in the world,and occupy the pivotal status in the world market.The structure of this article arranged and the main content in the paper as follows.Chapterâ… is the introduction of the paper, the contents mainly included carding the literature, proposing the main issues to make up for the defects of the present study,and accordingly selected appropriate research methods.The main content of Chapterâ…¡is the declining industrial transformation theory.This section firstly cleared the concept of the declining industy and industrial transformation, then built the declining industrial transformation theory on the basis of industrial strucure and industrial organization theory, ultimately established the analytical framework of this paper.Chapterâ…¢explored the theory of the government intervening the declining industrial transformation,and summarized the development process of the textile,steel and shipbuilding industries,then analysed the reasons of these industries'declining.The section also specifically explored main measues that the Japanese government applied in order to cope with the declining industries,mainly including trade protection, organizing depression cartel,financial aid, employment assistance and other short-term policy,finally the section appropriately evaluated the implementation's effect of the short-term policy.Chapterâ…£mainly analysed a series of long-term policies that the Japanese government formulated and implemented when the textile,steel and shipbuilding industries declined.The long-term policies mainly included equipment adjustment policy, technological progress policy,depressed region policy,small and medium-sized enterprise policy, then the effects of these policies that were implemented were evaluated.The main purpose of Chapterâ…¤was that it revealed the inevitability of Japanese companies implementing strategic innovation when its facing the decling industry.The textile,steel and shipbuilding enterprise mainly chose the following strategies: professional production,diversified expansion,foreign direct investment and enterprise restructuring.The section also made suitable evaluation to effects of the strategies implemented.Chapterâ…¥discussed the important role of the industry associations enacting in declining industrial transformation in Japan.In the course of industrial transformation,the associations in the declining industry mainly worked in the following areas:(1)assisting goverment to formulate and implemente the policy of declining industrial transformation; (2)coordinating the different views of the enterprise in declining industry;(3)promoting technical ability of the enterprise;(4)preserving the interests in external trade relations.Chapterâ…¦analysed the important role of the GTC in declining industrial transformation in Japan.Japanese GTC integrated different business interests in different enterprise, maintained the stability in producing and purchasing of the enterprise,and helped the enterprise that only achieved the meagre earnings in Japan conversing into a competitors in overseas markets,even effectively alleviated trade friction that the enterprise encountered.The main contents of Chapterâ…§is the evaluation for the Japanese declining industrial transformation, and summing up the experience of industrial transformation, then drawing some references for China.