orm similar networks" (Shimotani, 1995, p. 54).
The Structural Impediments Initiative between the United States and Japan has become a forum for reconsideration of the various economic systems that have contributed to Japan's rapid post-war growth and transformation into an economic power (Shimotani, 1995, p. 55). Of these economic systems is keiretsu. Keiretsu are linked both through investment and the exchange of personnel. The keiretsu are an effective system of minimizing transaction costs. The United States in particular charges that the keiretsu system excludes outside firms from markets and, more particularly, act as barriers to foreign firms attempting to enter the Japanese market. The keiretsu were a response to the intense competitive pressures which existed among Japanese firms. The keiretsu system, thus, resulted from corporate competition within the Japanese economy, and became established as a link between firms that was economically rational, and suited to Japanese-style management. Only as the Japanese economy grew and ad
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