ABSTRACT
Japan remains in many ways the pioneer of industrialisation outside the West and the first to demonstrate that the technology and organisation of industrial production were compatible with an institutional and cultural environment different from that of industrial-revolution Europe. This diffusion of industrialisation across the globe has not only shattered preconceptions as to the capacities of societies quite different from the European model to acquire and utilise modern industrial technology and organisation. It also widened the range of examples of the process and of its economic, social and environmental impact. The role of institutions, ranging from pre-industrial systems of property ownership and market relationships to present-day global companies and banks, in economic development, past and present, has become a major area of academic research and controversy. As far as industrialisation is concerned, it has always been assumed that the acquisition and operation of new forms of technology would require the import or development of new forms of institution.
