Partnering with the Japanese: Threat or opportunity for European businesses?

A prominent diagnosis in Europe and America is that alliances between Western and Japanese businesses are systematically manipulated by the latter to effect a strategic colonisation of the value chain in their favour. The various elements in this sombre analysis are elaborated here for inspection by John Burton. A detailed examination of the important case of the Rover/Honda alliance, however, reveals a somewhat different picture. Wider evidence also suggests that there is no set structure of outcomes resulting from cases of Japanese-European business partnering. The implication for European businesses is that they need not necessarily fear and avoid all Japanese 'entanglements'. The real problem that they face is how to select carefully from alliance prospects with Japanese partners, and then how to jointly manage them to mutually satisfactory benefit. Distilling a large body of experience, the paper erects four precepts for European-Japanese business alliances that are conducive to the attainment of these goals.