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Using data drawn from a sample of automotive Japanese firms constituting a keiretsu, this book reports the findings of three separate, independent and distinct empirical investigations that examine the extent to which corporate performance-as manifested by sales revenues and profits-are impacted by (a) Fragility, (b) Degree, and (c) Momentum, which embody inter-firm relationships and ties among member firms. The occurrence of the inter-relational structural changes noted above within keiretsu systems provided the impetus for this book, which begged the following research questions: What is the status quo of automotive keiretsus? Are transnational relationships in keiretsus still associated with increasing corporate performance? Owed to the paucity of research, answers to these questions are not readily available in the literature. Thus, to augment the extant knowledge in this field and documenting answers to these larger research questions, this book partially makes a contribution by bridging this gap in our understanding of keiretsus.

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Dr. Tsutomu Ito is a professional engineer at Hino Motors, Ltd., Japan. He earned his Ph. D. in Engineering from Hiroshima University in 2018. He has published more than 30 papers in refereed journals and proceedings. Dr. Ito was one of the winners of the Best Paper Award in the ICAROB international conference in 2015.

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