The Business of Survival: Small and Medium-Sized High-Tech Enterprises in Japan

This article reports the results of surveys of forty-three small and medium-sized firms in three industrial areas: Tokyo’s Ota ward, the southern technology corridor of Kyoto, and Higashi Osaka. They reveal that the main institutions of Japan’s industrial policy inhibit innovation in small firms. But those firms that have avoided becoming enmeshed in the traditional keiretsu structure have flourished.