Thriving in the shadow of giants: The success of the Japanese surgical needle producer MANI, 1956–2016

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.