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Trading locomotives between the USA and Japan: Okura & Co. at the beginning of the twentieth century
This article examines international transactions related to steam locomotives at the beginning of the twentieth century while focusing on Japanese trading companies. In particular, it considers in detail how Japanese trading companies acquired the knowledge and know-how of locomotive trading to carry out their business transactions through a case study of Okura & Co.'s New York branch office. The analysis highlights the following three factors that supported Okura's locomotive trade in New York: first, the company took advantage of business opportunities by collecting information through networks of Japanese contacts in New York and local experts; second, it utilised social and technological infrastructure, including international communication lines, transportation, and financial systems, as key fundamentals of its overseas activities; third, a former oyatoi (hired foreigner) played a critical role as its consulting engineer. In particular, the overseas activities of Japanese trading companies drew heavily on formerly hired foreign engineers, whose technological knowledge and networks became an essential route of knowledge transfer in cross-regional commercial management. These will contribute to the evolution of history related to the starting points of global activities of Japanese trading companies.
Journal Article
Trading Companies and \u2028Travel Knowledge in the Early Modern World
Trading Companies and Travel Knowledge in the Early Modern World explores the links between trade, empire, exploration, and global information transfer during the early modern period. By charting how the leaders, members, employees, and supporters of different trading companies gathered, processed, employed, protected, and divulged intelligence about foreign lands, peoples, and markets, this book throws new light on the internal uses of information by corporate actors and the ways they engaged with, relied on, and supplied various external publics. This ranged from using secret knowledge to beat competitors, to shaping debates about empire, and to forcing Europeans to reassess their understandings of specific environments due to contacts with non-European peoples. Reframing our understanding of trading companies through the lens of travel literature, this volume brings together thirteen experts in the field to facilitate a new understanding of how European corporations and empires were shaped by global webs of information exchange.
eBook
Co-production of sustainability indicators in a vulnerable South American agricultural frontier
Deforestation linked to agricultural activities is a major sustainability concern. Planning towards sustainable agricultural landscapes in the (sub-)tropics requires indicators that capture the many aspects of social-ecological cost and benefit of agriculture. Agricultural production strategies are developed using the best available data and knowledge such as high-yield locations, distance to storage facilities, or certification bonuses. However, there is often a divide between sustainable production data generated by the scientific community and current data that are of interest to actors, such as those in the agribusiness sector. Here, we describe how the harmonization of crop production, conservation, and social data used by scientists and agribusiness is possible using a participatory exercise based on knowledge co-production (i.e., generation of knowledge in a collaborative way) of socio-economic and environmental indicators (such as agricultural production, logistics, or the location of indigenous communities). This was made available through an online decision support platform that facilitated the generation of sustainable entrepreneurial strategies. We tested this exercise for the social-environmentally vulnerable Argentine Chaco dry forest, subject to some of the highest rates of deforestation globally, mainly due to soybean production. The cooperation between participants of this exercise built a knowledge exchange network that was key for informing decision-makers and highlighted information gaps including agricultural productivity, accessibility of regions, and the vulnerability of rural communities. Our exercise may be applicable to other agricultural commodity frontiers and showcases the value of including actors’ priorities in the design of indicators to ensure their policy impact and to achieve food systems’ sustainability.
Journal Article
Multinational Corporation Internationalization in the Service Sector: A Study of Japanese Trading Companies
This paper extends Chang's (1995) sequential investment theory to include multinational corporations (MNCs) in service industries, given this sector's large and growing impact on the global economy. To facilitate an examination of service MNC internationalization patterns, we develop a new typology of service investment (i.e., core-global, related-local, unrelated-global, and unrelated-local) based on business relatedness and location-specificity. We test this typology on a sample of large Japanese trading companies; our results suggest that the initial investments of service MNCs are closely related to their core businesses and are less location-specific, but that subsequent investments are less related to firms' core services and are more location-specific - a pattern similar to the traditional view on manufacturing MNCs. We extend our analysis to examine several case studies to provide a richer context for these findings. In addition, we examine the performance implications of internationalization. Our findings suggest that firms that internationalize through early investments that are closely related to their core activities outperform those in unrelated businesses over time, but that this performance gap between related and unrelated foreign investments diminishes in more advanced stages of internationalization.
Journal Article
Ostia Antica e le province africane: contatti, scambi, influenze ed eredità. Problematiche di studio e prospettive di valorizzazione
The essay is part of the studies regarding Ostia Antica, focused on its relations with African provinces--today in Tunisia--characterized by diversified influences, legacies, and cultural bonds. In Ostia, the intertwining of interests and cultures is also testified by various cults and religions coming from all over the Mediterranean Sea. The present study is aimed at highlighting Piazzale delle Corporazioni (Guild square) urban role: it is a structure built behind the theater scene, representing in ancient times a venue for a community including many different civilizations of foreign merchants, associated on the base of common ethnic or birthplace roots, to find their community trade. It was a meeting place where some North African and Tunisian communities established depots and warehouses to represent main shipping and trading companies from all over the Mediterranean Sea and African provinces: among these, the African naviculari, as Alexandria, Sabratha, and Carthage associations. Parole chiave Ostia Antica, Tunisia, enhancement, Mediterranean networks, urban landscapes.
Journal Article
Four Years of Tariff War and Two Years of Phase-One Agreement Between the U.S. and China–Has it Worked for the U. S.?/Zollkrieg und Handelsabkommen zwischen den USA und China
Four years after the Sino-American tariff war started and two years after the \"Phase-One\" deal was signed, it is a good time to take stock of the outcomes for the U. S. economy. The result is nearly unequivocally negative, in particular, China's failure to fulfill its promises to dramatically increase U. S. imports. By the end of 2021, China had barely reached 40% of its purchase target for goods. In addition, contrary to political affirmations, initial empirical studies show that American importers have borne the brunt of the tariffs' costs. In the short run, apparently American importers had little choice but to continue to rely on Chinese suppliers. Moreover, improvements in the bilateral trade deficit could not be ascribed to a targeted tariff policy. Nor did manufacturers relocate to the U. S. Instead, trade frictions depressed U. S. business investment. If anything, it may be said that the American managed trade strategy vis-a-vis China has diverted US imports to other suppliers, thus contributing to a diversification of supply chains. Vier Jahre nach Beginn des chinesisch-amerikanischen Zollkriegs und zwei Jahre nach der Unterzeichnung des Phase-One-Abkommens ist ein guter Zeitpunkt gekommen, um die Auswirkungen der Aussenhandelspolitik auf die US-Wirtschaft zu untersuchen. Auch wenn die Entwicklungen seit 2019 von anderen Faktoren uberlagert und sogar dominiert wurden, fallt dieses Fazit aber eindeutig negativ aus, wie der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt.
Journal Article
Drivers of successful international business strategy
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the drivers of trading company strategy that explain trading company success in international business. Design/methodology/approach - The strategy tripod that results from combining the industry-, resource- and institution-based views, each of which proposes specific drivers of strategic success, was used as the framework for investigating, in a longitudinal perspective, the drivers of the strategy of a trading company and its success in emerging economies. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, document analysis and non-participant observation and analyzed using content analysis techniques. Findings - Rather than a single driver, the authors found that strategic choices were driven at times by the demands of industrial competitiveness, at times by firm resources and capabilities, and at times by institutional conditions. There was evidence neither of a linear chronological order for these drivers, nor of driver obsolescence. On the contrary, findings suggest that drivers are cumulative and interactive. Changes in organizational resources and capabilities or in competitive or institutional environments can force review and re-thinking of strategic objectives. Research limitations/implications - Generalization is affected by the fact that the study focusses on the experience of one individual trading company. Practical implications - From a pragmatic, managerially oriented perspective, the findings show the importance to be alert to all the tripod legs over time, and not belittle the institutional context. This fact is noted by the data, which not realize a timeline or order between the drivers and the strategies adopted by the firm. Originality/value - The paper is of value in showing the drivers of trading company strategy and the determinants of trading company success in emerging economies using a longitudinal perspective rather than the more usual sectional perspective. In addition, the study is original in simultaneously investigating all three legs of the strategy tripod and providing empirical evidence about how the respective drivers interact over time.
Journal Article