Video games require the integration of elements such as world building, scenario, graphics, and music (Ikuine, 2000). In a video game product development project, the personnel who design and coordinate each element need to have an overall understanding of the product components. In the Japanese video game industry of 20 or more years, new employees were able to participate in the design and coordination of each element of the product as soon as they joined the company and acquired an overall understanding of product components. However, due to the recent increase in the size of development projects, the tasks assigned to new employees have become more segmentalized and modular, resulting in it becoming difficult for them to acquire an overall understanding of product components. Cyber Connect2, a Japanese video game development company, is trying to solve this problem by launching small experimental video game development projects and assigning young employees to work on them.

This paper investigated how design thinking is researched in management studies. A review of articles published in major business management journals found commonalities in that (a) while design thinking consists of several studies and includes various elements, (b) the most recent empirical research has in common that based on Brown (2009) and Martin (2009), along with practices and tools, the themes of user centeredness and experimentation are discussed.

The dynamic model of effectuation by Sarasvathy (2008) was a theory developed for expert entrepreneurs. So, what type of model would apply to nascent entrepreneurs? This paper is a case study of a nascent entrepreneur who established a business that uses crickets as a bio-resource. This nascent entrepreneur was interested in starting a business; however, he was unable to take immediate action and did not know what to do. Nevertheless, he was able to conduct an effectuation process by participating in a series of business plan contests and other acceleration programs. In this case, the acceleration programs provided three functions of (1) supporting goal setting from given means, (2) promoting interaction by requiring the use of social networks, and (3) making it easier to get commitment by providing credibility.

The concept of a hacker originated in the 1970s, and began to gradually take shape in the 1980s. It began to be discussed actively in various contexts, particularly in relation with the rise of open-source operating systems such as GNU and Linux in the 1990s until the early 2000s. Subsequently, as the times changed, the qualities that were demanded of reputable programmers changed in a major way. Originally, the programmers' capabilities in terms of writing code were most important, while their sociability was less emphasized. However, as computers became more common among the general public, and their social impact increased, hackers were required to be more socially amenable in various ways. Therefore, a large number of open-source projects introduced codes of conduct.

The trend toward modularization, which has been evident in electronic products since the 1990s, is usually seen as a form of architectural innovation. However, the relationship between technology and the customer/market has been characterized by disruptive innovation wherein 1) the level of technology and the value of the product have been downgraded, and consequently, 2) conventional legitimacy has become invalid. Accordingly, although the current leading Japanese companies have not been negligent in their innovation, they have lost their share of the market to new products born from modularization, which had initially been thought of like toys.

In the early 20th century, when Spanish flu and tuberculosis were prevalent, laborers in the Japanese textile industry worked long hours in poor conditions, and the risk of contracting an infectious disease was high. In such a situation, forward-thinking companies set up hospitals as a voluntary measure for dealing with infectious disease, provided free medical care and assistance payments in the event of illness, improved company dormitories, and introduced other measures for safeguarding workers’ welfare such as upgrading factories and offering educational programs. These programs influenced other companies and resulted in improvements in the working conditions at a number of firms, indicating that these countermeasures against infectious diseases were economically rational. This in turn implies that it is economically rational to upgrade sanitation and workers’ welfare in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent years, there have been many efforts in technology development, supply chain management, and digital transformation aimed at total optimization. This paper analyzes the context in which the terms total optimization and partial optimization have been used in Japanese companies, based on the frequency of their mentions and their trends in newspaper articles. The issue of total optimization has been covered by newspapers since the late 1980s and has been discussed for many years along with its solutions such as supply chain management (SCM), business process reengineering (BPR), and information and communication technology (ICT). The fact that the total optimization issue has continued to attract attention suggests that formal organization has not yet been established. While there has been a focus on promoting communication such as cross functional collaboration and integration, and the introduction and utilization of information technology, there has not yet been enough focus on what optimization is for in the first place, and the establishment requirements for formal organization still have not been sufficiently fulfilled.

This paper is a study of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) formed by Japanese startup clustering around the University of Tokyo’s Hongo Campus. A chronological analysis of 234 startups clustering around the university showed that the EE started to evolve in 2004 with a university-led incubator, and that non-incubator startups began increasing in around 2014, growing into an entrepreneur-led EE beyond the control of the university.