CIRJE-J-144. Okazaki, Tetsuji, "Organizational Evolution in the Cotton Spinning Industry in Pre-war Japan", January 2006.

In this paper, we explore the historical development of the organization of the Japanese cotton spinning industry, from an evolutionary perspective. We focus on how "fitness" factors, namely, exit (death) rate, entry (birth) rate, growth rate and conversion rate of cotton spinning firms worked for the change in the share of those firms which integrated a spinning process and a weaving process. The former three factors represent the mechanism of "natural selection," which is common to the biological evolution, while the latter factor represents "imitation," which is not observed in the biological evolution. It was found that entries of new firms greatly contributed to the emergence of a new organizational form, and after the early stage, other fitness factors began to work. Then in the final stage, the contribution of imitation became dominant.