Thirty years ago, in 1987, a questionnaire that asked the question, “The average lifespan of a company is said to be 30 years. What do you think the probability is that your company will have survived after 30 years?” was sent as part of a white-collar survey of 11 large Japanese firms. Responses were received from 575 people, and the average “probability” was 72%. Thirty years later, in 2017, two companies that employed 127 of those 575 people did not survive. This makes a survival rate of 78%.

Strategic consistency in resource allocation has in the past been called into question within the field of strategic management. However, the spotlight has been on dynamic capability with an emphasis on flexibility, while in a certain sense, strategic consistency has been taken for granted and treated lightly. In recent years, strategic consistency has once again come into use but with a meaning similar to organizational identity and as a concept that reflects the temporal continuity of an organization.

Purchasing behavior under time constraints differs from purchasing behavior without time constraints because of the pressure felt by consumers. This situation is called “time pressure.” This paper summarizes the methodologies and findings of prior research regarding time pressure and finds that (a) despite investigations of the impact of time constraints, time pressure has not been directly measured; and (b) the length of the time constraints in these studies was short, ranging from several seconds to several minutes, so the practical meaning for marketing is unclear. Although the term “time pressure” itself may be a bit dated, marketing research on time pressure is an unexplored field that holds promise for the future.

The folding “clamshell” mobile phone was chosen as the dominant industrial design in the Japanese mobile phone industry due to the importance of mail functionality, and NEC actively pushed this style and acquired major market share. As a result, at the start of the 21st century, the dominant design “Galapagos ke-tai,” unique to Japan, was established. However, this dominant industrial design along with the functionality of these phones became a barrier to the Japanese mobile phone industry when they shifted to smartphones. In other words, a dominant industrial design determined the competitive positions of companies.

The mother factory system is said to have broadly diffused the system of international division of labor used by Japanese manufacturers. However, is that truly the case? This paper provides an example of a supplier having a “facade mother factory” to respond to the demands of assembly manufacturer customers. This facade mother factory was not “a unit that continuously supports overseas factories,” as defined in prior studies. Instead, it was rather a “mother factory” needed as a facade to provide technical support services for customers, who happened to be Japanese companies.