اثرات انقلاب فناوری اطلاعات در روابط تولید کننده - تامین کننده ژاپن

“Vertical keiretsu,” characterized by suppliers' willingness to make customized investments, their long-term relationships with manufacturers and financial as well as personal ties between them, had been recognized as an important source of strength in Japanese industries. Our model predicts that, in contrast to the recent popular argument, the information-technology revolution can strengthen several aspects of “vertical keiretsu.” This is because the efficiency of designing customized parts can be significantly enhanced by suppliers' IT investments such as the introduction of 3D CAD systems. Our interviews with Japanese manufacturers provide a support to this prediction. J. Japanese Int. Economies18 (3) (2004) 390–415.

Japanese manufacturer–supplier relationships have been intensively studied throughout the 1980s, and a number of researchers have identified the cooperative relationships based on long-term relationships, suppliers' willingness to make customized investments, and financial as well as personal ties as their key features. Namely, Japanese manufacturers purchase intermediate products (or parts) repeatedly from a limited number of suppliers on a long-term basis, and the suppliers are willing to make investments specific to their purchaser in order to produce customized parts.1 Also, Japanese manufacturers typically own partial shareholdings of their suppliers, and they tend to build close personal ties by transferring employees between manufacturers and suppliers (see, e.g., Dyer and Ouchi, 1993). The Japanese manufacturer–supplier relationships characterized by these features have often been called “vertical keiretsu,” and regarded as a major source of strength in Japanese manufacturing industries. The MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity concluded, based on a number of case studies conducted in the late 1980s, that US manufacturers should establish Japanese-type cooperative relationships with their suppliers in order to regain their productive edge (see Dertouzos et al., 1989). Since 1989, the Chrysler Corporation has made a substantial effort to establish Japanese-type relationships with its suppliers. Dyer (1996) observed that, as a result, suppliers increased their investment in dedicated assets—plants, equipment, systems, processes, and people dedicated exclusively to serving Chrysler's needs. In contrast, a number of people recently asserted that recent advances in information technology (call it IT revolution hereafter) would dramatically change the basic nature of Japanese manufacturer–supplier relationships. For example, a leading economist in Japan argued in a recent newspaper article that Japanese manufacturers would change the nature of parts required for their products from customized parts to standard parts, and would procure them from a larger number of potential suppliers through the internet rather than from a limited number of suppliers within their own corporate groups (or “keiretsu”).2,3 How will the IT revolution impact on manufacturer–supplier relationships? Will “vertical keiretsu” disappear in Japan? This is an important question when we consider the sources of strength of manufacturing industries in the New Economy. We address this question both theoretically and empirically. We first consider an interaction between a manufacturer and suppliers in a two-period setting. In each period, the manufacturer determines the design of its final product, which in turn specifies the functional requirements for parts. We say that the manufacturer chooses a customized interface with a part if the product design requires that the design of the part should be tailored to the specific requirements of the manufacturer. Otherwise, we say that it chooses the standard interface. A customized interface requires customized parts whereas the standard interface requires standard parts.4 The value of a customized part for the manufacturer is higher than that of the standard part, but, in order to produce customized parts, a supplier must make investments customized to the manufacturer. We incorporate two major effects of the IT revolution into our framework. First, the prevalence of the internet reduces the downstream firm's cost for contacting and communicating with potential suppliers. Second, the efficiency of designing customized parts can be substantially improved by taking advantage of the IT revolution such as the usage of 3D CAD (Three-dimensional Computer Aided Design) systems, which enhance the efficiency for engineers of manufacturers and suppliers to coordinate their design activities. The realization of such efficiency, however, often requires higher levels of customized investments. For instance, suppliers need to introduce and maintain a 3D CAD system that is tailored to that of their purchaser. See Section 3 for more details on these effects. Our model predicts two distinct patterns for impacts of the IT revolution on manufacturer–supplier relationships. On one hand, the IT revolution can induce the manufacturer to choose the standard interface, and contact and communicate with a larger number of potential suppliers for purchasing the standard parts. This is consistent with the recent popular argument as described above; that is, due to the IT revolution, “vertical keiretsu” type relationships would become weaker or even disappear from many Japanese manufacturer–supplier relationships. However, our analysis suggests that this is only one side of the coin. It also predicts that, after the IT revolution, the manufacturer can either continue to choose a customized interface or switch from the standard interface to a customized interface, and procure customized parts from a smaller number of potential suppliers who make higher levels of customized investments. In other words, the IT revolution could strengthen several aspects of “vertical keiretsu” type relationships.5 The nature of the product development process, which differs across products, seems to be an important factor that determines which type of impact will emerge. That is, the latter pattern is more likely if the importance of close coordination among engineers made possible by the IT revolution is sufficiently high for a given product, and the former pattern is more likely otherwise. We have conducted interviews with ten large Japanese manufacturing firms concerning impacts of the IT revolution on their relationships with suppliers, and identified both of the two predicted patterns described above. Concerning the second pattern, five out of ten manufacturers expected that, as a result of the IT revolution, they would purchase customized parts from a smaller number of potential suppliers. In other words, these manufacturers expect that the IT revolution will strengthen this aspect of “vertical keiretsu” type relationship (that is, purchase of customized parts from a limited number of suppliers) with their suppliers. This finding is in contrast to the recent popular argument described above. Also, we have identified a similar pattern in the US automobile industry from our preliminary interviews. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a two-period model of an interaction between a manufacturer and suppliers, in which the manufacturer chooses an interface of its product with a part from a customized interface or the standard interface. Section 3 first considers the Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibria (SPNE) of the model, and then analyzes a variant of the model that incorporates the two effects of the IT revolution in our framework. The comparison of the equilibrium of the original model and the variant of the model yields predictions concerning impacts of the IT revolution on manufacturer–supplier relationships. Section 4 presents findings from our interviews with ten Japanese manufacturing firms, and discusses the consistency between our predictions and the interview results. Section 5 summarizes and concludes.

Japanese manufacturers' cooperative relationships with their suppliers, based on long-term relationships, suppliers' willingness to make customized investments, and financial as well as personal ties, have often been called “vertical keiretsu” and are widely recognized as an important source of strength in Japanese industries. In the 1980s, it had often been argued that US manufacturers should establish Japanese-type cooperative relationships with their suppliers in order to regain their productive edge. In contrast, a number of people recently asserted that the recent advances in information technology would dramatically change the basic nature of the Japanese manufacturer–supplier relationships. Namely, Japanese manufacturers would change the nature of parts required for their products from customized parts to standard parts, and procure them from a larger number of potential suppliers through the internet rather than from a limited number of suppliers within their own corporate groups (or “keiretsu”). How will the IT revolution impact on manufacturer–supplier relationships? Will “vertical keiretsu” disappear in Japan? This is an important question when we consider the sources of strength of manufacturing industries in the New Economy. This paper addressed this question both theoretically and empirically. We first considered a simple theoretical framework that incorporated the two major effects of the IT revolution. First, the prevalence of the internet reduces the downstream firm's cost for contacting and communicating with potential suppliers. Second, the efficiency of designing customized parts can be substantially improved by taking advantage of the IT revolution such as the usage of 3D CAD systems, which enhance the efficiency for engineers of manufacturers and suppliers to coordinate their design activities. The realization of such efficiency, however, often requires suppliers to make substantial investments in information systems, and such investments are often customized to a particular manufacturer to a certain degree. For instance, suppliers need to introduce and maintain a 3D CAD system that is tailored to that of their purchaser. Our model predicted two distinct patterns for impacts of the IT revolution on manufacturer–supplier relationships. On one hand, consistent with the recent popular argument, the IT revolution can induce the manufacturer to choose the standard interface, and contact and communicate with a larger number of potential suppliers for purchasing the standard parts. On the other hand, it also predicts that, after the IT revolution, the manufacturer can either continue to choose a customized interface or switch from the standard interface to a customized interface, and procure customized parts from a smaller number of potential suppliers who make higher levels of customized investments. In other words, the IT revolution could strengthen a certain aspect of “vertical keiretsu” type relationships. We then conducted interviews with ten Japanese manufacturing firms concerning impacts of the IT revolution on their relationships with suppliers, and identified both of the two predicted patterns described above. Concerning the second impact, five out of ten manufacturers expected that, as a result of the IT revolution, they would purchase customized parts from a smaller number of potential suppliers. In other words, in contrast to the recent popular argument, these manufacturers expected that the IT revolution would strengthen a certain aspect of “vertical keiretsu” type relationships with their suppliers. We admit that the strength of our evidence is limited because it is based on interviews with ten Japanese manufacturing firms rather than rigorous statistical analyses based on a random sample of a reasonable size. We however believe that the paper indicates a new direction for future empirical investigations concerning the impacts of the IT revolution on manufacturer–supplier relationships. In a future research, we plan to conduct such an empirical investigation based on a questionnaire survey of a large number of manufacturers.