A fashion for some and a phobia for others, Japan's economy appears larger than life, the first and only non-Western country to have broken the conventional association between geography, industrial democracy, and international prosperity. But fashions and phobias somehow miss the point. For anyone who wants to understand the real reasons behind Japan's economic miracle, The Japanese Enterprise System provides a clear and authoritative analysis.

Mark Fruin takes into account the main factors usually offered to explain Japanese success: human-resource practices, institutional structures, late development, industrial policy, and an accent on the efficiency of native economic institutions. More importantly, however, he comes to grips with how these issues interact. Emphasizing interactions between individuals, between individuals and institutions, and between institutions, he reveals exactly how Japanese enterprises are different from those in the West, and how those differences account for Japan's remarkable success.