In the face of population decline, most of local governments are now suffering from tight problem of how to revitalize local communities and local economies. In the process of economic development since the end of World War II, population migration from rural area to urban area and concentration of population to Tokyo metropolitan area have created biased population distribution and emerging ubiquitous network society and potential power of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are expected to be the magic wand for solving problems associated with this distorted society. However we should ask if there are good grounds for believing that ICT can be the savior for regional and/or local revitalization. In this paper, we first define the concept of regional revitalization, consider the measures for regional revitalization from a socio-economic perspective and then finally examine if ICT can contribute to regional revitalization or not.

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In this paper, I observed the cases of the making map for bicycle riders project in Kagoshima city, and of offering assistance for bicycle taxi event in Kagoshima city, both are based on regional SNS "NikiNiki" in Kagoshima prefecture. In these cases, I observed that the SNS members succeeded in avoiding the trap of illusion of consensus. That is why I built the strong secretariat management model which describes the mechanism of avoiding the trap of illusion of consensus.

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By using local Social Networking Service and blog as symbolized by web2.0, the dominant conception "ICT" will become increasingly important. Nowadays, TVCM and anime set in local area using Film Commission as one of promoting regional development started to creat. CGCM (Consumer Generated Commercial Message) is a type of CGM (Consumer Generated Media), self-made digital contents, receives a lot of attention by ENIGMO and Asahi Broadcasting Corpration. So there company run by students are looking for CGCM. This theory is developed as follows. First of all, this theory looks at CGCM by analysis of concept of CGM. Secondly, this theory delivers direct and indirect economic effect are producing by creating CGCM making full use of FC. Finally, this theory delivers the promotion of regional development utilizing the ICT through giving a big impact on CGCM maximizing the use of FC that created digital contents setting in local area.

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In this study, efficient corporate communication strategy on social contribution activities to raise corporate image was discussed with a point of view of marketing research. As a result, it was found there are five points that are important to appeal corporate social contribution activities. They are 1) consolidation of activities which have real meanings and are not exaggerated, 2) indirect appeal of corporate business by the tool of communication of social contribution activities, 3) effort to be adopted as TV news or newspaper reports, 4) considering a communication strategy such as an activity which attracts participants to prevent repulsion of the people, 5) application of people's word of mouth and brochure. These strategies are useful for making good relationship with stakeholders and important as a tool of CSR.

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This study shows that a staff office innovation through an IT-based free-address system is as effective in reducing workspace as a free-addressed office for field-workers. Its benefit was also measured by workers' motivation discussed in three factors: autonomy, productivity and overall job satisfaction. A field experiment was conducted, which showed that the office innovation with workspace reduction by a free-addressed office led to cost reduction. And the level of motivation of office workers was maintained while both cost-cutting and workspace reduction were achieved. This study also indicates that there is a difference in workers' motivation depending on the level of understanding of the office innovation objective and workers' vested rights.

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This research presents an investigation into the properties of the Autopoietic Viable System through a case study of X-corporation. X-Co. is No.1 in the convenience store industry. Through this study, we conclude that the activities of social autopoietic units and their chains produce viable systems. We will notice the meaning that Beer described that the heart of the enterprise is the human being.

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This paper mainly analyzes how a firm has the management assimilate information technology into organization work processes by restructuring IT function using outsourcing approach. Knowledge integration and organization coordination theory are used to build a conceptual research model to investigate the transformation process of IT function driven by IT outsourcing in Digital China as a case study. Then results indicate that the firm can integrate the individual knowledge of the senior executives, business managers/users and IT professionals across the firm into the organizational knowledge through building the favorable IT-business organizational coordination, to effectively assimilate the information technology into the organizational business and decision-making processes.

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The innovation process is consists of the creative and diffusion process broadly. The creative process focuses on the internal product development process and work flow improvement. The diffusion process focuses on the external activities, which are to diffuse the product onto the market widely and get the economical value as the result. There are many researches for individual innovation process, however, few researches for the comprehensive innovation process, which is to see the creative and diffusion process as a consistent process and discuss them comprehensively. In this paper, the possibility to study the comprehensive innovation process by using Actor-Network Theory will make clear by the case analysis for the innovation process of a personal computer peripheral device in Japan. As the results, the usefulness of ANT was verified for the investigation of comprehensive innovation process first. Secondly, the following hypothesis was derived. Innovation is not something that can be reduced to a single primary factor, such as a new technology, an organization, or a market, but that it requires the expansion of a network consisting of all of these elements, transition by means of this expansion, and translations that make the manufacturer an obligatory passage point in the network.

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In general, there exists a trade-off between pursuing production efficiency and ensuring flexible and agile response to changing customer needs in manufacturing industries. One of the promising ways of resolving this trade-off is the development and implementation of a mass-customisation system into which supply chain management (SCM) is incorporated. In this study, we examine how this mass-customisation system can be applied to manufacturing operation management in order to achieve the proper balance between the efficiency and the effectiveness. In particular, we analyse this problem using the high-low entropy framework model. This model describes that the problem can be resolved through the mass-customisation system which contains both entropy heightening factors and lowering factors. In order to make this clearer, we propose "the high-low entropy framework for mass-customisation with SCM" to show that the mass-customisation system could realise the compatibility between entropy heightening factors and lowering factors, even though the complete compatibility can never be attained.

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Manufacturing companies have introduced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for enterprise integration. Because of the size, goal, and cost, ERP software is employed not at plant level but at corporate level. It is usually given from headquarters of a company to plant (factory), from plant level point of view. But plants have used many IS before ERP implementation. Plants are using traditional IS even after implementation of ERP simultaneously. Both ERP and other IS have been customized at implementation as well as during operational maintenance. There have been some studies about ERP that are theoretically based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT), and the viewpoint is from organization. But the benefit of ERP implementation for a plant depends on level of functional integration too. This study evaluates level of functional integration that is realized by ERP system and other information systems (IS) in plants, and estimates their impact on manufacturing performance. The research reveals that customization and support by other IS impact on capacity to meet needs in plant, an intermediate benefit, but functional integration with ERP doesn't. The correlation of intermediate benefit to manufacturing performance is not significant. Also, this study found customization increase functional integration with ERP. Data used in this study has been collected from nine developed countries.

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