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Brightening Country Lives: Selling Electrical Goods in the Japanese Countryside, 1950–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Simon Partner
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Abstract

In the aftermath of World War II, Japanese companies looked to the United States as a model of middle-class, consumer-driven prosperity. Although living conditions in Japan were very different from those in the United States, Japanese companies imported product technologies and management techniques that helped them realize their vision of a mass consumer society. For electrical goods companies, the countryside represented a special challenge, as conservative values and traditional family structures hindered sales. In time, however, electrical goods companies were able to overcome these obstacles, and in the process they became major players in the transformation of peasants into consumers.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , December 2000 , pp. 762 - 784
Copyright
Copyright © Enterprise and Society 2000

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