The world is facing unprecedented, accelerated and fundamental changes that are affecting every aspect of society. Tomorrow will not be the same as today. Globalization, increasing interdependencies and complexity will require greater collaboration and communication across all boundaries and borders, as well as persistence, creativity and problem-solving capabilities. Considering that one of society’s most important functions is to prepare its youth for the future, institutions of education must rethink its current practices and systems to meet and shape the human development needs of the future. This paper addresses the challenges facing Japan and its education system, in particular its universities, and suggests the incorporation of problem-based, transdisciplinary and transborder learning, collaborative online international learning, involvement of important societal stakeholders such as firms, meaningful internships, active student involvement in their learning, and other such forward-looking pedagogical approaches.

The purpose of this study is to discuss and analyze the organizational capabilities of firms that lead strategic alliances to success, namely the alliance management capabilities. Based on the principles underlying knowledge-based theories, the study aims to answer the questions of what alliance management capabilities are, how knowledge management contributes to building them, and what mechanisms are required to activate knowledge management and enhance alliance management capabilities. Mechanisms are classified into four, which are functions, tools, processes and external networks, and the study analyzes how each of these four mechanisms influences the alliance management capabilities, using the data gained from a survey of 1,369 managers. The analysis finds that tools and processes strongly activate knowledge management, thereby leading to the enhancement of alliance management capabilities, while the effects of functions and external networks are limited. It also reveals that the accumulation of alliance experience significantly advances alliance management capabilities; however, it mitigates the influence of knowledge management on alliance management capabilities.

It has been a while since Japanese enterprises experienced downturns and faced issues due to low profitability. In the field of software, it is generally acknowledged that open source concepts are desirable in terms of both cost reduction and effectiveness. However, companies tend to have a certain degree of ‘psychological resistance’ to the use of open source tools. In comparison to western enterprises, Japanese businesses lag far behind in this regard.

Therefore, referring to the case of Google, the author analyzed how open source can be used as an open strategy based on a framework comprising strategy and resources (capability). The author found that Google adopts both open and closed strategies. The open strategy makes sure that Google can thoroughly utilize contributions, and this provides a mechanism by which stakeholders can reduce costs and use Google apps without transferring money along the supply chain. The closed strategy clarifies which elements can be differentiated to maintain market competitivity and concentrates profit sources in these areas.

The implication of this is that Google ambidextrously uses both open and closed strategies, and that the management responsible for the realization of these strategies is functioning well. In other words, the business model promoted by Google is admirable, comprehensively using both platform and dynamic capability strategies, thus combining sources of revenue and resources to make the most effective use of open source.

Automobile manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) are struggling to not only change their strategies but also reconfigure their resources in order to survive the “war” against Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (GAFA) in facing a once-in-a-century stage of innovation in the automotive industry called CASE—namely, connected cars (C), autonomous vehicles (A), share driving (S), and electric cars (A).

The objective of this paper is to assess the progress of Toyota’s survival strategy concentrating on connected cars based on the theory of dynamic managerial capabilities (DMC) developed in Kawai (2018a, 2018b) and the framework of dynamic platform strategy developed in Kawai (2019a, 2019b).

First, a typology of the possible defense strategies of Toyota was deduced based on examination of existing research concerning the theme. Then, the locus of Toyota’s efforts for defense was sketched and the company’s intermediary performance was assessed in reference to the above typology. Finally, evaluation shows that Toyota’s performance assessed by the extent of progress in measures taken is not necessarily poor as of today albeit there are substantial concerns, but it is too difficult to predict a final outcome.

Nintendo chosen high cost structure to keep software quality by eliminating small company. This led to lack of their software variety then they lost their market share in late 1990’s. Certain platform operators harm their ecosystem under the rational strategic decision like this. Hence, this paper discusses the conditions that cause platform operators to harm their ecosystem, as a preparation of developing the long-term platforms’ competitive strategy. Two types of complements with one-way indirect network effect are considered in this paper, namely, durable and non-durable complements. Durable complements hold a negative indirect network effect to another side like smartphone handsets or PCs. Too much variety of hardware charges big optimizing cost to software developers. Under these conditions, if two platform operators intend to maximize their market share, they decide to decrease the diversity of one type of complement. Thus, we should carefully develop the platforms’ profit structure for exploiting the potential of multi complements’ markets simultaneously.