A Study on the Entry into Japanese Market by Foreign Firm and its Entry Mode

在日本的外商直接投资自上世纪80年代末开始增长，此后经历了起伏，但在90年代末出现了快速增长，S。目前，日本的外商直接投资与外国直接投资的比例已经与其他发达国家相当。然而，外资企业在日本的存在总体上仍然较低。由于外国直接投资在日本的水平较低，人们经常指出，在日本市场接受外国直接投资存在各种障碍。但包括法律限制或经络在内的一些因素到目前为止是被禁止的，或者更确切地说是得到了缓解。此外，由于房地产价格的下跌和流动性高的劳动力市场的形成，日本市场长期以来的区位优势已经得到了很大的改善，仅以外来直接投资水平来衡量外资企业在日本的影响力是不合适的。因为有一个…更多其他进入日本市场的方式，如将技术授权给日本公司，在销售、生产和研发领域结盟，它们过去和现在都发挥着相当重要的作用。与日本公司结盟而不是外国公司直接投资背后的理性是节省交易成本。一方面，日本的内部化成本很高，因为依赖于相关公司之间的长期关系和高水平的商业成本，成为进入日本市场的壁垒。另一方面，由于建立在信任基础上的关系，市场上的交易成本往往较低。长期限制时代的历史影响也影响了压低交易成本的水平。如今，外资企业在日本的角色发生了很大的变化。长期以来，它只是子公司，主要作用是利用母公司在海外创造的竞争优势，从日本市场获得最大限度的租金。然而，欧美公司的日本子公司在研发领域发挥着重要作用，将从日本获得的技术逐步转移到其他附属公司，目前已成为集团公司的战略领导者。为了振兴日本经济，需要积极鼓励其他国家的外来直接投资，并改善营商环境，使日本子公司能够成为跨国公司中更重要的成员。较少

Foreign direct investment in Japan had started to grow in late 1980's. Since then, it experienced ups and downs, but its rapid expansion has occurred in late 1990's. The ratio between inward and outward direct investment has now become comparable with other advanced countries. However, the presence of foreign-owned companies is still low overall.As the reason why the level of foreign direct investment in Japan has low, it is often pointed out the existence of various barriers to accept them in the Japanese market. But some factors including legal restrictions or keiretsu are banned or rather alleviated by now. Moreover, the location advantages in the Japanese market, which had rather been poor for a long time, has now been improved greatly due to the fall of real estate price and the creation of labor market with high level of mobility.It is not appropriate to measure the influence of foreign-owned companies in Japan only by means of the inward direct investment level. Because there ar … More e many other ways of entering the Japanese market such as licensing technologies to Japanese firms, alliances the field of sales, production, and R&D, and they had been and even now are playing quite important roles.The rational behind the preference of alliances with Japanese firms over direct investment by foreign firms is the saving of transaction costs. On one hand, the internalization costs in Japan is high because the reliance on the long-term relationship among related firms and the high level of business costs play as entrance barrier to the Japanese market. On the other hand, the transaction costs in the market tend to be low due to the relationship based on trust. The historical effect from the long restricted era also affected to suppress the level of transaction cost low.Nowadays, the role of the foreign-owned firms has been greatly changed in Japan. It had long been merely the subsidiary with the main role being to maximize the rent form the Japanese market by using the competitive advantages created by the parent company overseas. However, the Japanese subsidiaries of the American and European firms play important roles in the field of R&D by progressively transporting technologies acquired in Japan to other affiliated companies, and now acting as the strategic leader in the group companies.In order to vitalize the Japanese economy, it is required to encourage aggressively the inward direct investment from other countries and to improve the business environment so that the Japanese subsidiary will be able to become an even more critical member in the multinational firm. Less