Zaibatsu firms had several characteristic features; diversified business, close ownership by family (Ie) and so on. Corresponding to these features, their top management organization was, differently from other non-Zaibatsu firms in Japan, functionally similar to those of divisional type of organization in United States which had a general head office with automonous divisions.
It is, however, after 1910s that each Zaibatsu firms had formed such a common decentralized type of organization, and they differed from each other during Meiji era. This article traces on the formation process of the top management organization of Mitsubishi during Meiji era as a case study of the Zaibatsu firms.