E-marketplaces had brought innovative impact in supply chain in industries. This paper focused on two successful business-to-business (B2B) e-marketplaces in Japan, and has analysed and characterized to show their respective key enablers. We have found that a B2B e-marketplace needs to be a platform for customers so that it becomes a fundamental part of customers ’business processes. Further, we developed a methodology, called soft innovation architecture (soft IA), for formulation of service innovation strategy. This builds a concrete representation of strategy of each e-marketplace. In soft IA, we represent a birds-eye view to analyse the strategy, and then conclude their strategic superiority from the resource-based view. In the future, we will expand soft IA to investigate dynamic capability of the e-marketplace in order to clarify the nature of appropriate change of their strategies.

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Scholars demonstrate that scientific ideas are not ready made inputs for technological innovation. They emphasize the importance of bridging scientists who are competent in both science and technology domains to translate the scientific competency of firms into better patent performance. I extend the current understanding of bridging the science-technology domains by showing that the degree to which bridging scientists enhance the patent performance depends on the extent to which their scientific findings are exploited in the patenting process. In the absence of conscious exploitation, mere presence of bridging scientists does not ensure translation of scientific competencies into better technological innovation. Abstract: Scholars demonstrate that scientific ideas are not ready made inputs for technological innovation.

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New Product development (NPD) is the most typical innovation activity of companies and will determine the profitability and growth potential of the company's future. However, the strategic decisions in NPD have an extremely complex and fuzzy nature, due to today's rapidly changing and highly uncertain business environment. The aim of this research is to improve the accuracy of decision making support with competitive advantage in technological innovation,under a situation of increased competition. In this research on the basis of Business Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence theoretical studies, the effective method of collection, analysis and evaluation of technology information is proposed, and the importance of technical information source selection while exploring information demanded in NPD is revealed. In addition, the effective usage of technical information sources was examined. Finally, this paper presents the technology analysis observed from the Technology Intelligence-based decision support approach for NPD in product life cycle stages with competitive advantage.

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Knowledge acquisition is an important aspect in simulation game. However, most simulation game developers focus on not knowledge acquisition, but the game itself. Even though researchers focus on knowledge acquisition, their concerns are the acquisition of game-related domain knowledge. Different types of knowledge can be obtained through various activities of simulation game in response to different purposes of these activities. Particularly,most simulation games have been computerized and widely utilized online. This indicates the availability of new method for knowledge acquisition. In this paper, we focus on knowledge acquisition in computer-supported simulation game with ICT mediated knowledge acquisition method. First, we categorize different types of activities and participants involved in simulation game, and clarify the relationship between different types of participants and activities. Then, we propose a new method for knowledge acquisition, by which participants can acquire knowledge from/for various gaming simulation activities. The proposed method is a computer-based numerical simulation with intelligent agent and human generated gaming data. After explaining the concept and definition of the method, we will see how the method can be used in different activities, and give some usages of the method in business simulation game, and suggest possible usage of the method for each type of activities. Finally, we discuss how ICT supported methods can facilitate knowledge acquisition in simulation game activities.

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This paper aims to derive optimal switch polity for the limited-cycle with multiple-periods. In a multi-period system (e.g., a production line) where target processing time exists, idle and delay risks occur repeatedly for multiple periods. Generally, whether this restriction is satisfied is not only dependent on the risks of this period but also the risks generated beforehand. We consider controlling the production process by switching the processing rate to a faster one at a given point (period) to minimize the total expected cost of the production process. In this paper, first, in order to consider the more Žexible switch strategy, the optimal switching problem is discussed by subdividing the process with phases. Next, the mathematic formulations of switching problem based on the phase are analyzed. Finally, the policy of optimal switching strategy is investigated by Erlang numerical experiments.

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