@inproceedings{oai:kutarr.kochi-tech.ac.jp:00000971,
 author = {Suekane, Atsuyoshi},
 book = {Society for Social Management Systems Internet Journal},
 issue = {1},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {Of late, a considerable number of companies closed their business, had to close or even resulted in bankruptcy for many reasons. On the other hand, some 400 companies have sustained their business for more than 300 years in Japan despite high waves occurred over the years such as revolution, world wars, depression, disasters and so forth. Those companies are called as “Shinise” i.e., companies/shops of long standing. Why Shinise companies were able to become Shinise? What would be the secrets of this long standing? These are our key interests. The question is very simple, but it is easy to imagine the answer should not be simple and easy. The author and his study group conducted a questionnaire survey with these 400 companies/shops distributing throughout Japan. 30 questions with 5-point scale and some open-ended questions were employed. Although redemption rate was small, i.e., 74 companies/shops or 20%, 7 key factors were identified with Factor Analysis. The study group also carried out qualitative survey i.e., interviews with representative companies/shops in individual factors. This qualitative survey is still going on. Interesting findings came out of the analysis: 1) sum of the contribution ratio of the top 7 factors was 54.4% only, and 2) the sizes of individual factors in terms of %contribution were close each other ranging from 9.3% to 6.6%, which meant that the reasons for long standing were not single and simple, and those Shinise companies were standing with their own specific basis, background and/or philosophy. Other interesting findings were there found several questions with small standard deviations and ones with large standard deviations, which indicated that the former ones could be considered as “must” conditions for long standing while the latter ones as “multiplicity” for individual companies/shops. Learning from this kind of research may contribute, although further studies are required, to companies/shops who wish to sustain their business as long as possible and new companies who aim to stand long.},
 publisher = {Society for Social Management Systems},
 title = {An Analysis on Long Standing Companies in Japan : Why They can be Sustainable?},
 volume = {5},
 year = {2009}
}