keiretsun.

1965 G. C. Allen Japan's Econ. Expansion vi. 115 Some observers of the economic scene..claim that a new type of industrial organization has emerged. They refer to it as Keiretsu, by which they mean a closely-knit, vertical hierarchy of enterprises centred on a great concern... It seems likely that where this Keiretsu organization has appeared, it has had the effect of circumscribing co-operative activities among small and medium manufacturers.

1966 S. Broadbridge Industr. Dualism in Japan 96 (note) The co-operation I have mentioned is..sometimes the only alternative to elimination from the keiretsu as the large company enforces an increase in sale and in specialization.

1989 K. Van Wolferen Enigma of Japanese Power (1990) ii. 46 These are the hierarchically ordered system of subsidiaries, suppliers, subcontractors and distributors associated with a particular major manufacturer. Each large member of a gurupu stands at the apex of a vertical keiretsu that may encompass several hundreds of companies.

1991 H. E. English & Y. Okada in F. D. Hampson & C. J. Maule After Cold War 214 Intermarket keiretsu have since the 1950s functioned as a cooperative body centred around banks and complementing each other with financial resources, specializing skills, technologies and some business dealings.

1999 Wired Nov. 35 The hyperreactive future starts with every household device playing inside a seamless communications network. Call it living-room keiretsu.

1975 Business Week 31 Mar. 43/1 In Japan, a solid relationship with one of the six big business groups or keiretsu—which today dominate the nation's commerce the way the zaibatsu did before the war—can mean the difference between survival and going under.

1978 Forbes 10 July 92/1 Add their equity investments in scores of other Japanese firms, and the size of the Mitsui Keiretsu (‘postwar group’) is larger still.

1994 Microsoft Developer Network News July 14/1 No one company or government will own all of it, but several world-class corporations and U.S. ‘keiretsu’ will own large pieces of it.

1995 New Yorker 13 Nov. 74/3 Membership in one or another of the political or literary or fashionable keiretsus that dominate Paris.

2000 Red Herring Feb. 100/3 When the United States occupied Japan, it outlawed zaibatsus, weakening them to form the keiretsus we know today without the necessary central decision making.