We proposed the bulletin board system which assists classes with practices. Our system does not obstruct communication among students so that they can utter their opinions freely. Our system extracts useful information and provides them to students to dissolve their questions. We managed our system in the information education classes. But in some classes, students rarely used our system and there were few utterances. We thought that it was necessary to find out the features of the community on the bulletin board system and to mange the system effectively. So we focus on the relationship between users and topics and visualize the community on the bulletin board system by the network analysis. We analyze the features of the visualized communities. We find out that there are some factors such as acknowledgment among users, students who utter positively and teacher’s role to promote them to utter.

With the developments in information technology, POS system is used in the retail business recently. We can record the purchase data historically on database with use of POS system, and with use of the data, we can know purchase patterns of customers. Historical data of customers is very useful for the retailers to build marketing strategy. Especially, it is very important for the marketing analysts to know the brand-switching patterns of thier customers when they attract customers to thier own company brand, or when they prevent customers from flowing out to other company brand.

In this study, we build brand switching prediction model with the use of multivariate logit model in order to understand brand-switching behaviour of customers. Additionally, applying our model to the actual POS system data of drug stores chain offered by Customers Communication Ltd., we verify the appropriateness of our model.

This paper examines the effectiveness of the theory of structural embeddedness adopted to partnership networks analysis for studying how a firm’s partner relationships contribute to the competitive advantage. ERP package vendors, which have significant partner relationships as one of their characteristics, are analyzed as a comparative case study. First, their partnership networks are analyzed based on the Resource Based View theory, then an analysis is added based on the structural embeddedness theory which can complement a RBV’s shortfall.

The conclusions of the paper are as follows: 1) From the RBV theory’s point of view, an ERP package vendor that has open relationships structure with its partners does not have the differentiation advantage compared to an ERP package vendor that has close relationships structure with its partners 2) The former type ERP package vendor has ‘Opportunity Advantage’ compared to the latter type ERP package vendor.

That ‘Opportunity Advantage’, a capability to get more business opportunities, has been not clearly examined in the traditional RBV theory. However, to analyze partnership networks of the ERP package vendors based on the theory of structural embeddedness makes the difference clear among the ERP package vendors concerning ‘Opportunity Advantage’ capabilities.

In this paper, it is a substantiated research for a proposal of flexible information system (IS) following a change of production system. Japanese manufacturer stands hard business environment by customer needs, such as cost down, lead time reduction, flexible manufacturing. There is a one deal with that, it is important to execute PDCA cycle generally. But, in some cases, IS that supports production activity doesn’t perform sufficiently inside of phase at P, D, C, A, or between each phase. For instance, it is caused that the planning system information and the executing system information are not controlled sufficiently. Or it breaks out a problem that not following the change of production system, if the IS has firm structure. Therefore, adapting the function of Workflow and Manufacturing Execution System, it was developed that System Architecture and Production Information System, having the feature of easy reconstruction. In addition, from viewpoint of business activity, flexibility and utility of the IS was evaluated, basing on the case that the IS was introduced into a manufacturer of “SOKEIZAI” industry.

The decline of warehouses has made Kyoto craftsmen tortured with lack of information on trends or new design. “Kyo-mono” brand business project is a community of practice among Kyoto craftsmen and product designers, where Kyoto craftsmen are expected to try to develop new products in consonance with the modern trends and to learn the manner of collaborating with product designers. However, different sense of values or different custom of business among participants might disturb collaborative development processes. This paper reports the field study of collaborative development processes between Kyoto craftsmen and product designers from the viewpoint of Soft Systems Methodology. Soft Systems Methodology is known as the method to make latent problem of organizations clear and to try to reform the function of the organization. This paper classified the function of this collaborative group into four types of system model and shows the necessity of visualizing collaborative process for all participants to understand mutually. Then, collaborative communication processes among Kyoto craftsmen and product designers were analyzed with technical terms in the study area of Design Engineering and Value Engineering. This paper gives the guideline to record of collaborative communication processes based on results of this analysis.