The Issues around the Initiative of Introducing Technology by Organizational Newcomers : A Successor-led Innovation in SMEs in Manufacturing Industry by Yoshihiro Kamiya Business succession is one of the opportunities for innovation. A successor may take advantage of it for introducing new technologies and implanting them in his/her firm to renew its organization, processes, productions, and management. LPP （Legitimate Peripheral Participation） theory discusses the learning process of new technologies as a situated activity and the technological transfer as situational in organizations. This paper focuses on the initiatives of introducing technology by business successors as organizational newcomer to a community of practice, the field of situational learning. Those successorled initiatives bring three major changes in the communities of practice : generating contradiction in its members’ learning process, harming old-timers’ identities, and losing an embodied model of full participation. These changes might have impact on succession of existing technologies and organization.

Exit of a predecessor and derived conflicts between the successor as a newcomer and old-timers might lead structural changes in the organization and require managing conflicts derived from those changes. The changes also may harm the opportunities for newcomers to learn the skill and tacit knowledge from old-timers. These conflicts and tensions will remain until the successor becomes a full participant and the organization is stabilized.

This paper discusses that old-timers’ emotional resistance and organizational inertia disturb the initiatives of technology introduction by business successors. It suggests that “new comers learn from old-timers”, one of major concepts of LPP, should be reexamined. However, the emerged situation in successor-led companies in this research shows processes of generation and stabilization of communities of practice. The experience as a core element of developing skills tells “situated learning” in LLP still has its validity. Business successors are required both pursuing technological innovation and utilizing accumulated knowledge in organizations. The challenges for new comers are to develop new skills swiftly and to maintain previous skills and practice as long as possible.

This paper discusses the career decision made by Sazo Idemitsu （1885─1981）, the founder of Idemitsu Kosan, Co., Ltd.（ 1940─）, upon his graduation from college, and the reason for his selecting Sakai Shokai, a private firm. According to Idemitsu, when he became an apprentice to Sakai Shokai immediately after his graduation, his former classmates insulted him for being “a disgrace to the college.” Through verification of this poor reputation of his career decision, we researched the preferences of graduates from Kobe Higher Commercial School concerning their career decisions over the period from the late 1900s to the mid-1910s. At that time, graduates had the option either to become a white collar worker at a modern company or to serve a premodern private firm as an apprentice.

Our research found that every year a few graduates from the college planned to join private firms and that it was not only Idemitsu who planned to undergo training in practical business at such a firm in order to prepare themselves for starting up their own businesses in the future. A few such graduates were determined to serve at private firms as an apprentice, although their number was limited. However, Idemitsu, who graduated from the college at the end of 1900s, belonged to the last generation who considered an apprenticeship as an effective means to learn about practical business.

In the mid-1910s, more than 10 graduates annually began to join Mitsui & Co., Ltd., one of Japan’s major trading companies. At the same time, the number of graduates who joined Suzuki & Co.（ 1874─1927）, which grew its business dramatically during World War I, also began increasing rapidly. The transition from the late 1900s to the mid-1910s was a turning point for both types of graduates : those who aspired to join modern companies and those who planned to serve at traditional private firms.

Shibusawa Keizō, the grandson of Shibusawa Eiichi, served as the Governor of the Bank of Japan during the Second World War and later became Japan’s Finance Minister in the postwar regime. In 1937, shortly after his grandfather’s death and before assuming his leadership roles, Keizō began channeling his passions into developing the concept for the Japan Business History Museum and preparing for the opening of the facility. Hoping to cover everything from Edo-period culture to the economic shifts and developmental changes that Japan experienced from the Bunsei era to the Meiji period, Keizō oversaw the collection of a wide variety of historical documents, paintings, photographs, materials, and other items to chronicle the country’s progression. The initiative eventually amassed 38,000 pieces in 11 different categories （paintings, maps, product rankings, paper money, materials, documents, books, advertisements, and photographs, among others）, with 13,911 paintings, materials, and advertisements （accounting for 61,964 images） now available in digital formats at the National Institute of Japanese Literature. The process of analyzing this extensive collection holds immense potential for outlining a new approach to business history.

Keizō’s background helped mold his strong interests in and unique perspectives on both economic and business history. In addition to writing “Honpō kōgyō-shi ni kan suru ichikōsatsu”［A consideration of Japanese industrial history］ as his graduation thesis for the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, for example, Keizō also shared a long, deep friendship with fellow classmate and eminent economic scholar Tsuchiya Takao. The vision for the Japanese Business History Museum and its collection of materials also stemmed from Keizō’s connections with folklorists and his awareness of the relevant issues. By examining these roots of the conceptualization, along with items reflecting popular economic life and Keizō’s statements pertaining to the use of visual information, this paper analyzes Keizō’s socioeconomic philosophy and proposes a new economic and business history methodology that incorporates nonverbal resources.

This study clarified the R&D and diffusion process of the breakthrough stainless surgical needle developed by MANI Inc., a Japanese company engaged in the manufacture of high-quality, durable small medical instruments. In the 1960s, MANI developed the world’s first stainless surgical needle, driven by the timely decision-making of top management to invest its R&D against the norm, and their persistent efforts to solve technological problems related to raw material and the manufacturing process. Despite its superior quality and acceptable price compared with the traditional iron needle, the diffusion of the stainless surgical needle was slow until the end of the 1980s. This could be attributed to Japanese hospitals’ disinterest in management, traditional tenets about the nurse’s role, and the interests of the wholesalers. During the 1960s-1970s Japanese hospitals disregarded management due to high demand for medical care, and consequently, they were not concerned with the breakthrough of small products. In addition, Japanese nurses had accepted a traditionally subsidiary role to doctors, while the responsibility for iron needle quality control, a tedious task, was theirs. On the other hand, the wholesalers considered that the diffusion of stainless surgical needles would decrease their sales margins from surgical needles, given the durability of the stainless version. MANI tried to break the deadlock in the 1960s-70s by partnering with exceptional individuals who offered their support to the stainless surgical needle for specific reasons. In the 1980s, as Japanese hospitals became more interested in management, nurses became more empowered and questions were raised over their traditional role. Following these developments, the demand for stainless surgical needles increased dramatically in Japan. As a result of their sustained effort to maintain the stainless surgical needle business, MANI was poised to seize this opportunity and finally diffused stainless surgical needles into the market by 1990.

This paper explores self-renewal of regional specialization in the production center on the basis of a study for Arita porcelain production center in Japan. Arita is the birthplace of porcelain in Japan. In Arita, a few core porcelain producers, for instance Koransya, Fukagawaseiji, Kakiemon, and Imaemon, have taken the responsibility to refine the skills and keep its tradition after Meiji Restoration. The others respect the core porcelain producers to rule the region as a leader. Arita, which had been the major production center of the business tableware, has been in recession due to an economic crisis and the emergence of imported ceramics in recent years. Arita production center, however, successfully diversified its product categories and tried to make progress for the self-renewal of its regional specialization, which were driven by entrepreneurship of a leading group of the frontier porcelain producers and wholesalers.

This paper insists that the frontier porcelain producers’ and wholesalers’ entrepreneurship stimulated self-renewal of regional specialization. It also argues that the unwritten competition rule, preventing cut throat competition, served as a catalyst to keep the region as a porcelain production center alive. Each regional specialization has been supported by these unwritten rules on the basis of the system of encouraging the local talent.

In terms of Japanese political context that is “Engagement of All Citizens” policy which is advocated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, both of national and local governments are trying to promote woman’s entrepreneurship. Comprehensive formal institutional support programs have been provided by both of governments but they have no experience or knowledge of gender differences on entrepreneurship. Former studies did not focus on Japanese context and women entrepreneurs. Then this study will shed light them and provide some useful information to improve the environment surrounding Japanese women entrepreneurs and encourage them.

Based on a unique sample of 202 female entrepreneurs in Japan, this study explores the extent to which different institutional arrangements affect female entrepreneurial venture performance. Drawing upon a unified theoretical framework of social cognitive and institutional perspectives, we scrutinize the complex interplay among supportive institutional environments, entrepreneurial cognitions and entrepreneurial success. The findings of our structural equation modelling indicate that women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy is a strong and useful mediator of the effect of informal institutional support on venture performance. Our study proposes that perceived social legitimacy may lead to increased entrepreneurial self-efficacy, thereby enhancing venture performance. This finding can clarify the institutional force pathways to foster entrepreneurial confidence.