Where are the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Fords of recent Japanese history? Their absence may be explained by a lack of scholarly attention to the areas of entrepreneurship, business organization, and managerial practices. Professors Rosovsky and Yamamura review the historiography of Japan's industrialization and place the five articles in this special issue within the context of recent work in business and economic history.

Tradtional Japanese disdain for business was overcome by making industrialization synonymous with the esteemed value of public service in the face of foreign economic competition. The alien corporate form of organization was made palatable by characterizing it as a family group which attracted traditional loyalties. Professor Hirschmeier attributes Japan's rapid industrialization at the turn of the century and her remarkable recovery after World War II to such pragmatic social compromises and uses them to identify and explain a uniquely Japanese “spirit of enterprise.”

Hikojirō Nakamigawa, the famous head of the Sanyō Railway and the huge Mitsui business combine, has long been characterized by historians as the epitome of the modern entrepreneur. In this article, Professor Yui, after a brief survey of the highlights of Nakamigawa's career, challenges the traditional interpretation by presenting a more balanced view of this controversial figure.

As their enterprises expanded at the turn of the century, the leaders of two of the most famous Japanese zaibatsu worked continually to maintain the delicate balance between centralization and decentralization so essential to continued growth. Professor Morikawa chronicles and analyzes the most important organizational developments in these gigantic family firms.

Faced with a labor shortage at a crucial point in the industrialization of Japan, tradition-oriented businessmen reacted not by raising wages but by longing for the authority-ordered labor relations of the past. Given this situation, the Meiji government moved to improve working conditions through non-economic means. Professor Taira shows that the debate over proposed factory legislation, along with the coming-of-age of a new generation of entrepreneurs, produced a “conversion” to modern management among businessmen of the late-Meiji generation.

In analyzing the evolution of the modern Japanese system of industrial labor relations, Professor Evans argues that Japan's culture and history played dominant roles in the formation of employer-employee relations, and that convergence with western practices was Largely absent.

Professor Yamamura offers a critical evaluation of the recently established Journal of Japanese business history and of five important new books on Japanese business, entrepreneurial, and economic history.