Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Main points 6 1.3 Organization of the book 8 2 Organizational innovations from the 1860s in the USA and Japan 12 2.1 Introduction 12 2.2 OIs in the USA up to World War II 12 2.3 OIs in Japan up to World War II 18 2.4 OIs in the USA after World War II 22 2.5 Japanese OIs after World War II 25 2.6 Japanese and American evolutions of firms and OIs: a brief comparison 30 2.7 Conclusions 31 3 The role of OIs in the theory of economic growth 33 3.1 Introduction 33 3.2 Literature review about OIs 34 3.3 OIs and TIs 46 3.4 Inclusion of OIs in the production function 57 3.5 Conclusions 62 4 Contribution of specific OIs to economic growth and the three axes of OIs 66 4.1 Introduction 66 4.2 American firm organization and economic growth 67 4.3 Japanese firm organization and industrial growth 80 4.4 The three axes of OIs 101 4.5 Conclusions 108 5 The process of firm operations: core of the atomic/systemic model of economic growth 111 5.1 Introduction 111 5.2 The system of four bio-socio-economic processes 112 5.3 Leading firms and sectors, and diffusion of OIs 131 5.4 An atomic/systemic model of economic growth 141 5.5 Conclusions 147 6 OIs and manufacturing sectors’ growth in the USA and Japan 152 6.1 Introduction 152 6.2 The period from the end of the 19th century to World War II 153 6.3 The period from the 1960s to the end of the 20th century 166 6.4 Conclusions 198 Appendix 6.1: Indices of real output in three-digit SIC sectors in the USA, 1963 to 1998 200 Appendix 6.2: List of manufacturing sectors on a three-digit basis with their code numbers 207 7 Empirical evidence on the links between industrial sectoral growth and the lean production system (JIT/QC) in the USA 210 7.1 Introduction 210 7.2 Implementation of the JIT and QC systems in the two countries 212 7.3 Quantitative evidence 218 7.4 Conclusions 252 Appendix 7.1: Transformation of the 459-sector data to 85-sector and 28-sector data 257 Appendix 7.2: Basic data for the 28 ISIC sectors in the USA, expressed as percentage 258 Appendix 7.3: The 85-sector database, USA, from 1987 to 1996 annual average growth rate, as percentage 260 Appendix 7.4: Stationary long-term coefficients and vectors V 263 8 Conclusions, limitations, implications 270 8.1 Introduction 270 8.2 Synthesis of the major conclusions 271 8.3 Limitations, omissions and future research 277 8.4 Implications and recommendations 284 8.5 Epilogue 286 References 289 Index 317