The Japanese Transplants: Production Organization and Regional Development

Abstract Japanese direct investment has resulted in a transplant manufacturing complex of major automotive assembly facilities, steel mills and steel coating lines, rubber and tire factories, and more than 250 new automotive suppliers in and around the industrial heartland. Findings from a three-year study of the location patterns of these Japanese-owned and Japanese-U.S. joint ventures indicate that the transplants are replicating in the U.S. the Japanese system of geographically concentrated “just-in-time” end users and suppliers and that industrial incentives have little effect on the location choices of transplant firms. Planners and policymakers can learn from the transplants to develop programs to modernize and organizationally restructure American firms and industries.

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