Abstract

"Applied Business History: An Application to the Japanese Petroleum Industry"

Takeo Kikkawa, Tokyo University of Science (kikkawa09@gmail.com)

The implications of this paper are that the raison d’être that needs to be clarified in business history studies consists of presenting action plans that could not be discovered by other approaches regarding the required reforms of economy and companies. Paradoxically, because business history studies are “practical-oriented” and “useful,” they are significant. This is because applied business history can be induced from business history studies. Applied business history is the method of approaching the solutions to contemporary problems facing particular industries and companies on the basis of extracting the dynamism of industrial and corporate developments through business history research.
Generally speaking, in seeking to fully solve serious problems facing particular industries and companies, even if you present “respectable ideals” and “correct theories,” you cannot produce results without applying them to the historical contexts in which those industries and companies are found. In addition, it also requires a lot of energy to solve problems, but the grounds for the need for that energy consist in the dynamism of development lying within particular industries and companies. However, this dynamism remains hidden and invisible in many cases. To extract the dynamism, you have to start by deeply and closely observing the long history of particular industries and companies. If you can grasp the dynamism of development by starting with observations, you will find the path toward acquiring the energy necessary for solving problems in accordance with the understanding of the dynamism. You can then also find the path toward achieving solutions to problems by applying that energy to the context and linking it with the appropriate ideals and theories. This is the key concept behind the applied business history.
This paper applies applied business history to the reform of the Japanese petroleum industry.