ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The purposes of this article are to investigate the globalization process and characteristics of Japanese manufacturing SMEs focusing on Global Niche Top (GNT) firms and to seek for policy and management implications for Korea. In Japan, after the working age population began to decrease, both large firms and SMEs became enthusiastic about exploring foreign markets. There, GNT firms tend to expand their business with domestic and foreign customers while keeping production facilities inside Japan. Although some of them were born-global, most of them established their competitiveness at first in domestic market with general-purpose or niche products and then moved to foreign markets eventually becoming global niche top. GNT firms were analyzed to have the following characteristics. Most of them were owner-management firms and emphasized product development based on customer-needs while protecting their technologies through patents and trade secrete. They were active in establishing foreign sales network, and most of them treated domestic production as a high priority. In addition, most of them had plans to keep or increase domestic employment and utilized bank loans or capital surplus as financing method. Through the investigation of GNT firms, this paper emphasized the following things as policy implications: paradigm shift in SME policies, policy coordination among government divisions and policy performance evaluation, more government support for SMEs’ global market-oriented R&D activities, and the cultivation and utilization of human resources with global business competences. As to managerial implications, this article underscored to large firms the effectiveness of helping SME partners enhance globalization. It also emphasized to SMEs the effectiveness of modular strategies, importance of establishing foreign sales network, and the utilization of foreign students and large firm retirees.

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