ABSTRACT

This study investigates how people recognize and use organizational forms in the process of economic development. In order to do this, I will focus on the recognition and use of the corporate form as well as the private limited liability company (PLLC) form in Japan after World War II (WWII).

Before WWII, the corporate form was considered as an instrument for big businesses, while the PLLC was for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). After WWII, however, many SMEs started to use the corporate form, even though they could not fulfill all the legal obligations. Even though this situation was criticized as ‘abusive’ use of the corporate form, SMEs continued to use it, but the extent to which they preferred it to the PLLC form has changed over time.

By referring to discussions of legal scholars as well as statistical data, I found that several different factors affected this phenomenon: the trustworthiness of corporations, the cost of using the corporate form, and its usefulness for the modernization of management.

摘要

这项研究调查了人们在经济发展过程中如何认识和使用组织形式。为此，我将重点介绍第二次世界大战（WWII）之后在日本对公司形式以及私人有限责任公司（PLLC）形式的认可和使用。

第二次世界大战之前，公司形式被认为是大企业的工具，而PLLC是中小型企业（SME）的工具。但是，第二次世界大战后，许多中小企业即使无法履行所有法律义务，也开始使用公司形式。尽管这种情况被批评为“滥用”公司形式，但中小型企业仍在使用它，但随着时间的推移，它们对PLLC形式的偏爱程度有所变化。

通过参考法律学者的讨论以及统计数据，我发现几种不同的因素影响了这一现象：公司的可信赖性，使用公司形式的成本及其对管理现代化的有用性。