ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following research questions: how were Japanese companies able to achieve competitiveness in electronic materials, while the chemical industry was historically weak in this country? and how was it possible to keep this advantage in global markets? It presents the overall development of the chemical industry in Japan. The chapter shows that emergence of a new sub-industry, namely the electronic material industry, in which Japanese firms had a dominant position. It analyses the way in which Japanese producers of electronic materials were able to extend their competitiveness to the global market. The chapter argues that although Japanese companies are weak in the general chemical industry, they have achieved a high competitiveness in some specific parts of this industry, such as functional chemical products. Medium-sized—not large-scale—chemical companies have increased their competitiveness. Many of the highly profitable chemical corporations in Japan developed the electronic materials field in the 1980s and 1990s when the markets were small.
