Forty Years On: Researching the Globalization of the Japanese Firm in the UK

Forty years have now passed since the economic relationship between Britain and Japan started to deepen beyond arms-length trading ties. This article presents an overview of research on the globalization of the Japanese firm by looking at work produced from the UK standpoint over the last four decades. By reconfiguring and re-presenting existing research on the Japanese firm, the article seeks to challenge some established orthodoxies by presenting analyses and arguments on the following three subjects: the system of employment in large Japanese organizations, industrial convergence and the ‘japanization’ of British industry thesis, and Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK. Although the article continues to recognise the relevance of cross-national perspectives and comparisons, it also urges scholars to take account in their discussions of socio-economic systems at the sub-national and trans-national levels of analysis.