The longevity of Japanese businesses, from a 378-year-old sake maker to a four-century-old construction company that started in temple carpentry, partly has roots in the country's hermetic history. Limited contact with the outside world nurtured a distinctive culture valuing loyalty and continuity. Since the mid-19th century, when American pressure prized open Japan to the Western world, those traits provided an anchor as commercial life was confronted with innovations and pressures from abroad. David E.