Abstract
Assuming that the only managerial parameters of a business company decided on by the CEO are R & D expense, capital spending and operating expense, the financial reports from 1980 to 2005 of several major companies in the U.S. and Japan were analyzed to trace their strategies. The trajectories obtained show that the strategy shifts decided by the CEO are represented by the inflection points in the curves. The strategy shifts in the American businesses (IBM and Intel) were made in the incumbency of the CEOs, while the move in many Japanese companies corresponded to the time of CEO replacement. The clearest illustration was usually obtained for the pair of capital spending and R & D expense for the U.S. businesses, and for that of operating expense and R & D expense for the Japanese companies. Some Japanese firms were found to have needed no strategy shift. Analysis of their patents revealed a long-term strategy focused on continuous and systematic exploitation of their technological assets to match market trends.
