Thriving in the shadow of giants: The success of the Japanese surgical needle producer MANI, 1956–2016
研究了日本中小企业MANI如何在大型公司主导的医疗器械行业中，通过内部驱动的动态不平衡过程，成功制造出世界首款不锈钢手术针并保持领先地位。
Large companies have a clear presence in the medical instruments industry, but in their shadow, many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have successfully carved out and defended niches. This article examines one of these enterprises in detail: MANI, a Japanese company that manufactured the world’s first stainless steel surgical needles and remains among the top three producers of these needles today. This article explains the company’s success using the ‘dynamic imbalance’ framework; this framework helps map MANI’s development of a sustainable competitive advantage as the result of internally driven and repeated processes rather than externally driven and specific technological inventions.