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.

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.

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.

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.

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%.

In the first quarter century after World War II, small- and medium-sized businesses were discussed in Japan with no relation to discussions about startups in other countries. For some time after the war, a two-tiered structure theory with a pessimistic approach toward small- and medium-sized businesses was at the fore, and later discussions of medium-sized companies never really focused on startups. However, from the 1970s, with the influence of the U.S., the Japanese-English term “venture businesses” began to take off. Venture capital began to be provided to startups, and these businesses came to be discussed with great expectations.

A questionnaire distributed to domestic factories belonging to Japan’s electric and electronics industry revealed three results: (1) regardless of the significant shift of production functions to sites outside Japan, approximately 90% of domestic locations are able to complete production functions to a high degree; (2) approximately 54% of locations are able to complete design functions to a high degree, whereas 24% are able to do so to a low degree; and (3) domestic production sites that are able to completely fulfill multiple functions (design/production engineering/production) have the following traits: 1) they are superior to their rivals at delivery accuracy and speed and better at responding to market needs and 2) they are superior to their transplants in China/ASEAN countries at making proposals and developing new products. This suggests that multi-functional factories are superior to their transplants in the area of new product proposal and development.

Predictions of a coming age of digital convergence bring to mind a convergence of the information devices used by consumers. In actuality, information devices are becoming more diversified. This study surveys and analyzes smartphone users (N = 1000) of the video-sharing service YouTube, with results showing that (1) users of a variety of information devices tend to more actively post and view videos than those that do not and (2) users are divided into two camps—those who have a variety of information devices and therefore tend to post videos and those who only use a smartphone intensively. In other words, we show that users with multiple information devices make more active use of these devices.

Photolithography equipment used in the manufacture of semiconductors has been predicted to hit a technological limit based on the Rayleigh criterion in terms of resolution. In actuality, however, the predicted limits of resolution are exceeded and increased microfabrication of photolithography equipment is achieved because of a change in the architecture from {mirror system, equal magnification, batch exposure} to {lens system, reduction, divided exposure}. Instead of using the Rayleigh criterion to make such predictions, experts use it to repeatedly generate “a set of recurrent and quasi-standard illustrations” as methods to improve resolution. The Rayleigh criterion itself is a typical example of what Kuhn (1962) termed a “community paradigm,” by which improvements to resolution were achieved by (a) increasing numerical aperture, (b) shortening wavelength, and (c) reducing the k₁ factor.