Lost Direction of Exploration Strategy

Rise and Fall of Fujifilm and Kodak

Abstract

For a company to grow sustainably, it is effective to conduct a search in a new area beyond the current business area and technology area. Many previous studies have pointed out characteristics that tend to search for neighboring regions, and have classified the search activities and have clarified the effects of each of the typed search activities. This paper aims to contribute to the elucidation of exploration process which previous research has not paid attention. First, we present a new concept of search hierarchy and clarify the difference between Fujifilm's and Kodak's exploration strategies. And we argue the reason why the rise and fall of the two companies were divided from the viewpoint of exploration process based on the search hierarchy.