Knowledge-Intensive Mother Factory

Abstract

This study clarifies that a home base without mass production activities can support foreign factories by acting as a mother factory through the case of Minebea Co., Ltd. Minebea's home base has aggressively gathered information on mass production from their foreign factories and has continued to accumulate knowledge on mass production, even after discontinuing its own mass production activities. Although the home factory is inactive in terms of mass production, it has succeeded in supporting mass production at their foreign factory as a "knowledge-intensive mother factory," the factory that possesses knowledge on mass production without engaging in any mass production activity. It was found that a home base can possess knowledge that exceeds its boundary of activities, enabling it to act as a mother factory supporting mass production at foreign factories without engaging in any mass production.

International allocation of value chains

“…The Nakasone office supports the company's overseas sites. The mother plant that supports the overseas sites has various roles (Oki, 2015), with the Nakasone office supporting technology development and human resources.…”

Using grounded theory approach in management research

“…Besides GTA, other approaches includeEisenhardt (1989) andYin (2009). Studies that use their methods includeKim (2015) andOki (2015). SeeSato (2016) for the characteristics of theEisenhardt (1989) approach.5 However, qualitative research is commonly used in some areas(Sato, 2014).…”