Japan Corporate History & Strategy is a database that maps the strategic histories and key management decisions of major Japanese listed companies. The Japanese edition covers 107 companies, with 7 currently available in English. Its purpose is to translate the contextual rationality of Japanese business for a global audience.
How did these companies make critical decisions, and what were the consequences? This site traces the trajectory of each company's decision-making from founding to the present day, accompanied by financial data and business performance trends. It is built and maintained by a single Japanese software engineer, developed with Claude Code, and hosted on AWS.
In business, attention naturally gravitates toward the immediate: this quarter's earnings, today's stock price, this week's headlines. These are important, but focusing exclusively on the present risks misunderstanding what a company fundamentally is. Why is a successful company successful? The answer usually lies not in yesterday or last month, but in decisions made 10, 20, or even 50 years ago.
Companies are living organisms. They begin with a founder's vision, struggle with markets, face crises, overcome them, and evolve into what they are today. Only by understanding the entire arc can you truly grasp a company's strengths, why its business structure looks the way it does, and where it intends to go next.
Corporate IR pages and earnings reports capture the “now.” This site connects the dots into a continuous line — from founding to the present. Seeing a company as a trajectory rather than a snapshot. That is the fundamental perspective of this site.
Japanese corporations don't follow textbook rationality — they follow contextual rationality, a logic forged through decades of accumulated decisions, institutional relationships, and cultural imperatives. A strategy that looks inefficient from the outside often reveals itself as entirely rational when traced through its historical arc.
Among advanced economies, Japan's corporate world remains one of the most opaque to external observers. The logic is there, but it's embedded in context that rarely gets translated. Lifetime employment, cross-shareholdings, consensus-driven decision-making, the keiretsu legacy — these aren't anachronisms. They are structural features with deep historical roots that continue to shape corporate behavior today.
As a Japanese native and software engineer, my goal is to make this invisible logic visible. To translate the contextual rationality of Japanese business so the world can engage with these companies on their own terms.
This site is run by a single person. Research, writing, design, and development — all done by one individual. This is not a constraint but a deliberate choice. A solo operation allows maximum flexibility: new approaches can be tested immediately, and failures reversed just as quickly. Since there is no single correct way to present corporate history, this agility is the site's strength.
All content is based exclusively on publicly accessible sources: securities filings, earnings presentations, press releases, news reports, and officially published corporate histories. Where public information is insufficient for definitive conclusions, qualifying language is used to distinguish fact from interpretation.
This site deliberately avoids value judgments about companies. There is no single metric that defines corporate quality — revenue, profit, margins, stock price, and employee count each paint a different picture. These metrics themselves shift with the times: an era that valued top-line growth gave way to one focused on margins, and now ROIC and non-financial indicators compete for attention.
The goal is description, not evaluation. What happened, why was that decision made, and what resulted from it? By carefully laying out facts and context, the site enables readers to form their own understanding using their own criteria.
That said, in private discussions I hold — and argue — strong opinions about Japanese corporate governance. But presenting a calm, measured surface while reserving sharp views for the right moment is itself a form of Japanese wisdom.
All data is compiled from publicly available sources including securities filings (yuho), earnings reports, official IR materials, published books, and news articles. Financial data (revenue, profit, employee count) is primarily sourced from annual securities filings.
Yutaka Sugiura
Software Engineer & Data Analyst (not a financial professional)
Native Japanese speaker (does not speak English) — all English content is translated with AI assistance
This is a personal project, built and maintained by one person. I believe that understanding Japanese companies better is the first step toward helping them become better.
For inquiries, feedback, or collaboration proposals:
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