Enterprise and Society Advance Access published online on September 20, 2007
Enterprise and Society, doi:10.1093/es/khm072
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Global Knowledge Transfer and Telecommunications: The Bell System in Japan, 1945–1952
Stephen B. Adams is Associate Professor of Management at the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business, Salisbury University. Contact information: Franklin P. Perdue School of Business, Salisbury University, 1100 Camden Ave., Salisbury, MD 21801.
Paul J. Miranti is Professor of Accounting and Information Systems at the Rutgers Business School. Contact information: Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University, 180 University Ave., Newark, NJ 07102-1897.
sbadams{at}salisbury.edu
miranti{at}business.rutgers.edu
This study evaluates the Bell System's role in the revival of Japanese telecommunications during the post-World War II occupation. Civilian and military personnel who had worked for the firm and who served in the Civil Communications Service (CCS) of the Supreme Command Allied Powers represented the primary agents for knowledge transfer to Japan's Ministry of Communications (MOC) and its supporting independent equipment manufacturers. The MOC became a channel for communicating ideas about management practices at the Bell System to the local telecommunications industry. The CCS's actions in Japan represent what Alfred D. Chandler has termed the "integrated learning base" in action in the public sector. The CCS's role in knowledge transfer has been underestimated by many scholars who have focused primarily on its contributions to promoting production and quality engineering in telecommunications manufacturing. Its central achievement was laying the managerial groundwork for the establishment in 1952 of the governmental enterprise Nippon Telegraph and Telephone.
The authors thank Phil Scranton, Lou Galambos, members of the seminar of the Institute for Applied Economics and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts, and Tab Lewis at the National Archives for research assistance.