Concept · Business
Keiretsu
In plain English
A grouping of Japanese firms linked by continuing relationships rather than by a single controlling owner — mutual shareholdings and a main bank in the horizontal form, long-term supplier and distribution ties in the vertical.
Literally
Series, lineage, or ordered succession.
Commonly mistaken for
Not the Japanese equivalent of a chaebol. The defining difference is ownership: chaebol are family-controlled, while keiretsu are coordinated by relationship. Note also that the horizontal keiretsu’s coherence as an economic entity is contested in the economics literature, and that these ties loosened considerably after the 1990s.
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Japanese
· ·
keiretsu; enterprise group; cross-shareholding
Related
- Chaebol — 재벌
Sources
- 「系列」and「企業系列」, デジタル大辞泉 and 日本大百科全書
- Dissolution of the zaibatsu, 1945–51 — 持株会社整理委員会 and the 過度経済力集中排除法
- Yoshiro Miwa and J. Mark Ramseyer, “The Fable of the Keiretsu”, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 11(2), 2002
Review status. Sources verified against primary references, 1 August 2026.