The Start of Bicycle Parts Standardization Through Transformations of Local Supply Chain

Abstract

Despite the fact that much of the existing literature on Global Value Chains (GVCs) notes that bicycle parts are modular, it has thus far largely failed to identify exactly how bicycle parts were standardized in international markets. This paper uses national statistics, contemporary dissertations, and descriptions provided in both Japanese and German trade publications in order to focus on how bicycles became a modular product by the middle of 1930s. Analysis of that key question reveals that the transformation of local supply base triggered the technological upgrading of the Japanese bicycle parts industry and this transformation was supported by the Japanese export-oriented regime.http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_184