Ben Wubs

Associate Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Principal Investigator for The Enterprise of Culture

Ben Wubs (Ph.D., ESHCC, Erasmus University Rotterdam) is an Associate Professor at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and an appointed Project Professor at the Graduate School of Economics Kyoto University. He is engaged in various projects related to multinationals, business systems, transnational economic regions, Dutch-German economic relations, and the transnational fashion industry. He co-supervised a NWO funded project on Rotterdam and its German hinterland. Furthermore, Wubs is secretary of the Transnational Rhine Network. In addition, he is council member of the European Business History Association (EBHA). Since 2013, he has been a principal investigator of an Anglo-Dutch-Norwegian consortium which received a HERA II grant to do research into the transnational connections of Fashion industry since 1945, the Enterprise of Culture project.

Abstract

Competitiveness of the Japanese denim and jeans industry: the cases of Kaihara and Japan Blue, 1970-2015

The two cases, Kaihara and Japan Blue, perfectly fit in a comparative historical study on Japanese premium denim and jeans. On the one hand, it shows that producing denim is a different story and needs a different strategy than producing jeans. On the other, the two stories are also closely related because of a certain interdependence of the two industries – Kaihara, for example, dyes Japan Blue’s woven cotton. So an in-depth historical analysis of the two cases will give us good insight into the development of the historical competiveness of Japan’s denim and jeans manufacturing in the last 45 years. Our main question is: how did Japanese denim and jeans companies became leading and competitive firms and survived so far in a highly competitive global industry which constantly relocates manufacturing to low cost countries?

Ben Wubs will speak alongside Rika Fujioka, Kasai University, Osaka.