The Invisible Link Japan's Sogo Shosha and the Organization of Trade

A sogo shosha is like no other type of company. The Invisible Link provides asystematic and well-balanced description that covers virtually all aspects of sogo shoshaoperations, from finance to personnel.The sogo shosha is not defined by the products it handles oreven by the services it performs, for it offers a broad and changing array of goods and functions.Its business goals are equally elusive, for maximization of profits from each transaction is clearlynot the major goal, at either the operating or philosophical level. The sogo shosha could be broadlydefined as a large, diversified, multinational enterprise engaged primarily in trading. Yet it is auniquely Japanese business operation whose structural and strategic dynamics have no closecounterparts in North America and Europe.There are only nine sogo shosha in Japan - six of them ofmajor significance - and the largest employs fewer than 15,000. Among them, they handle aboutone-half of all of Japan's exports and imports. The sogo shosha typically deal in bulk in productsthat are highly standardized and technologically unsophisticated - raw materials, commodities,intermediary products. A large sogo shosha will finance, develop, manufacture and/or carry over20,000 different items, "from noodles to missiles" as one slogan has it.The Invisible Link givesdetailed coverage to such topics as historical evolution of the sogo shosha, strategic responses andcompetitive dynamics, culture and organization, administrative structures and processes, humanresource systems, career outcomes, interunit and interfirm coordination, sectional and networkorganization, and emerging challenges as the nature of the Japanese economy changes.M. Y Yoshino isProfessor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Two of his books, Japan'sManagerial System and The Japanese Marketing System, were published by The MIT Press. Thomas B.Lifson is an Associate in the Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University.

Thomas B. Lifson is an Associate in the Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University.

M. Y Yoshino is Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Two of his books, Japan's Managerial System and The Japanese Marketing System, were published by The MIT Press.