ABSTRACT
We now turn to a more systematic analysis of industrial collaboration in four sectors: consumer electronics, information technology, automobiles and aerospace. We adopted a sectoral approach, since it allowed the Japanese and non-Japanese researchers on the project to debate their various perceptions of developments in key industries. It also allowed the team to concentrate on industries with very different underlying competitive positions. Thus, consumer electronics is a sector in which the Japanese are now moving well ahead of their non-Japanese competitors. In contrast, the aerospace sector is one in which the non-Japanese have a long technological lead which they are not likely to have to surrender. Somewhere in the middle are the automotive and informationtechnology sectors. The Japanese believe that their industrial success is narrowly based, and that non-Japanese observers are assuming too much when they claim that the Japanese will inevitably repeat in other industries their past successes in shipbuilding, steel and consumer electronics.
