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Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company (NTT) and the Building of a Telecommunications Industry in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Marie Anchordoguy
Marie Anchordoguy
Affiliation:
MARIE ANCHORDOGUY is associate professor and chair of the Japan Studies Program in the Henry M. Jackson School ofInternational Studies at the University of Washington.
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Abstract

The state's role in building Japan's telecommunications industry is illustrated by the history of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company (NTT) in the post–World War II period. Several factors explain the state's success in developing one of the world's most reliable and technologically advanced industries: a strong desire for technological self-sufficiency; a favorable international environment; an ability to legally reverse-engineer foreign products; and the existence of a business sector that was willing and able to invest heavily in the human resources and facilities necessary to become global players. Japan also benefited from a consensus among its state and business elite on how to use NTT for the purpose of national development.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2001 , pp. 507 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2011

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References

1 Good historical accounts in English that focus on the period after 1980 include Chalmers Johnson, “MITI, MPT, and the Telecom Wars,” in Johnson, Chalmers, Tyson, Laura, and Zysman, John, eds., Politics and Productivity: How Japan's Development Strategy Works (Boston, 1989), 177–240Google Scholar; Vogel, Steven, Freer Markets, More Rules (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996)Google Scholar; Fransman, Martin, Japan's Computer and Communications Industry (Oxford, U.K., 1995)Google Scholar. All interviews in this article were done in Tokyo unless otherwise noted. At the request of the interviewees, I have not revealed their identities.

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53 Interview with head of one of NTT's national labs, 5 Dec. 1987.

54 Interviews with former NTT official, 13 Apr. 1993, and head of an NTT lab, 5 Dec. 1987.

55 Interviews with head of an NTT lab, 5 Dec. 1987; former NTT official, 13 Apr. 1993; and former top-level NTT official, 14 Nov. 1996.

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58 Cited in Nakagavva, NTT Gijutsu Suimyaku, 95.

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63 NTT, Denden 10 Nen no Ayumi, 149.

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77 MPT, Tsushin Hakusho, annual; Anchordoguy, Computers, Inc.: Japan's Challenge to IBM; various interviews: among others, the former head of MITI software agency, 27 Oct. 1999; a former Fujitsu official, 16 Nov. 1999; and a former Hitachi engineer, 3 Feb. 1993.

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79 Interview with top executive at NTT family firm, 26 Mar. 1993.

80 Interview with Fujitsu executive, 1 Dec. 1987.

81 Interview with top executive of NTT family firm, 26 Mar. 1993.

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86 Interview with former NTT official, 13 Apr. 1993; NTT, Denden 10 Nen no Ayumi, 123, 126.

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89 Interview with Inose Hiroshi, one of Japan's leading scholars of the telecommunications industry, 19 Apr. 1989.

90 Top executive at NTT family firm, 26 Mar. 1993.

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97 Interview with former NTT official then at CIAJ, 23 June 1993.

98 Interview with former NTT official, 13 Apr. 1993.

99 Interviews with top executive at NTT family firm, 26 Mar. 1993, and retired Hitachi engineer, 3 Feb. 1993.

100 Interview with one of Japan's leading scholars of the telecommunications industry, 19 Apr. 1989.

101 Interview with top executive of NTT family firm, 26 Mar. 1993.

102 Interview with former NTT official then at CIAJ, 23 June 1993.

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107 Interview with former top-level NTT executive, 14 Nov. 1996.

108 Interviews with top executive of NTT family firm, 26 Mar. 1993; former head of MITI agency, 27 Oct. 1999; and MPT official, 28 Oct. 1999.

109 Interview with former NTT officials, one on 13 Apr., the other on 23 June 1993.

110 Interview with former top-level NTT executive, 14 Nov. 1996.

111 Marie Anchordoguy, “The Politicization and Erosion of the Developmental State: Japan's Telecommunications Industry, 1980–2000” (Working Paper, 2000).

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114 Interviews with, among others, Keidanren official, 28 July 1995; former MITI official, 18 Oct. 1999; Science and Technology Agency official, 22 Oct. 1999; MPT official, 28 Oct. 1999; former MPT official, 12 Nov. 1999.

115 For a detailed account, see Anchordoguy, “The Politicization and Erosion of the Developmental State.”

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117 Interview with former MITI official, 18 Oct. 1999.

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