Many Japanese research institutes bear names such as "General research laboratory", though the term "general" is not reflected in their English names. However, most of such institutes are "general" only in the sense that single organizations cover a variety of research subjects ; they have not been successful in integrating those subjects into a whole. While the "integration" is a prerequisite for further advancement of research in Japan, it is not always compatible with social customs or traditional mentality of the country. Research projects should therefore take into account possible obstacles and devise countermeasures in the planning stage for successful interdisciplinary integration of research activities.

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The Japanese enterprises provided, chiefly in the 1980s, a viewpoint possibly alternative to the traditionally U. S. -centered theories on corporate behavior. However, the slump of the Japanese economy in the '90s led not only to decline of interest in the Japan model but to changes in the Japanese corporate behavior itself. This paper reviews discussions in the '80s on Japanese enterprises, particularly their product and technology strategies, and compares them with the behavior of Japanese companies and observations on them in the '90s and later, to examine the circumstance they are now facing. The earlier discussions concerned a broad range of dynamic aspects including product and technology strategies as well as the corporate strategy at large, which attracted less attention in the U. S. where the static compatibility was of major concern. However, Japanese enterprises are experiencing poor performance in such dynamic aspects, and some have switched their efforts to pursuit of static compatibility. Some features of the Japanese model were certainly overestimated ; not all of the modes of behavior perceived as "dynamic" actually functioned. Nevertheless, what is rational in a particular point of time does not necessarily remains so in a lapse of time. Strategies based on dynamic elements should still be effective for Japanese enterprises.

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Proper understanding of the effects of technological changes on firm competitiveness has become important both for academia and practitioners. To achieve this, the paper first reviews several studies that attempt to answer the question : why established firms decline by technological changes? Those studies are based on different assumptions on firm behavior, ranging from a standard model in economics to models based on organization theory. The paper also introduces the recent studies that deal with an opposite question : why established enterprises continue to dominate the market in spite of technological changes? The paper next shows that these theories have not necessarily succeeded in predicting actual behavior of Japanese firms, and explores reasons of this failure. It examines possible revision of the theories or their boundary conditions, by drawing examples on the hard disk drive, the microlithography and the digital still camera industries. The author points out the possibility of that, under the condition of low labor mobility, existing firms may be more adaptive to competence-destroying innovation than competence-enhancing innovation. The author also indicates that promoting high degree of division of labor may lead to the successful response to architectural change especially when technology become complex, and that technological changes at the different levels of the product architecture may have different impact on the existing firms.

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Innovations may be categorized according to the visibility of the dimensions of values they provide. Innovations have been conventionally understood as progressive processes along a few, objectively defined dimensions of values. Competition there meant how to go faster than rivals along those dimensions. While this concept of the innovation is effective as long as much room for such progress exists, it will eventually reach a technological or cognitive limit, and then innovative products turn to commodities. In order to gain and sustain competitive advantage, a new understanding of the innovation on an invisible dimension is needed. The paper presents a conceptual framework for examining a new paradigm for the innovation along an invisible dimensions.

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The article focuses on organizational processes of product development, reviews past relevant studies on product development management since the latter half of the 1980s, and explores characteristics, problems and future directions of the product development management of Japanese firms. Past studies have characterized Japanese product development management with organizational integration of product development processes across functional specialties, and have suggested the advantage in international competition. However, the type of product development management is not necessarily effective under current international competition. On the other hand, recent studies on product development management imply that effective product development management for commercial success could differ by product characteristics. These situations encourage both of practitioners and researchers to reconsider Japanese product development management. The article examines past and present studies on product development management, and thereby suggests the differences in effective product development management by product characteristics. Based on the perspective, the article attempts to elucidate problems and future directions of the product development management of Japanese firms.

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The present work discusses effective management of new product development in the chemical industry. Most of the preceding studies on the management of product development concerned assembly or system products/industries, and empirical studies on the chemical industry have been relatively scarce. The paper shows that patterns in concept development is a decisive managerial factor for successful projects by statistical analysis of the product development projects in Japanese major chemical businesses. The theory of product development management states generally that customers' requirements should be closely followed in the development of industrial products, as opposed to the development of consumer products where potential needs should be exploited. Analysis shows, however, that proposing concepts to customers based on anticipated needs of end users (customers' customers) is important also for successful development of industrial products. The present work examines conditions under which this "customers' customers" approach, which aims at satisfaction of end users, is effective.

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Diversification of a firm's customer/supplier base may often cause difficult problems for outsourcing of R&D-related activities. However, our surveys clarify that the business relationship between Japanese car manufacturers and their major suppliers are currently not only enlarging the scope of customer/supplier bases but, at the same time, are also strengthening R&D-related ties. More specifically, car manufactures tend to prefer, especially in a relatively small number of important projects, close collaboration with their core suppliers with which they have long-term stable dealings and various shared routines. Since these projects involve the development of new technologies, it is extremely difficult to manage them in an ordinary joint development scheme. On the other hand, however, in less technically advanced and relatively simpler projects where car manufacturers do not need to be as cautious, they would like to deal with new and additional suppliers. Thus the "diversification of customer/supplier base" refers to the former category of joint development projects, and the "strengthening of R&D-related ties" to the latter, so the concurrent manifestation of these two seemingly contradictory movements can be reconciled. This paper provides a more detailed description of this kind of "multi-project" situation based on the results of our surveys and interviews.

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Science and technology policy is often focused upon projects involving development of advanced technologies or hardware, partly because of their appeal to people interested in technical products but not in technology itself. In developing de jure standards, the importance of measurement standards, safety of chemical substances, biological resources information, materials, and geological information are widely recognized, because their value is easily understood to such a degree that some of them are distributed commercially, as it is the case for some data packages. Organizations for R&D, however, need for their operation intellectual properties of a different category, such as operation standards and instructions, standard analytical procedures, software safety analysis procedures, information security monitoring technology, and image analysis procedures. Some of them have been established as de facto standards, while others remain classified as organizational knowledge. Their values have not been measured as prices. This paper recommends to evaluate them, e. g. on occasions of restructuring national R&D organizations, in addition to the well-known kind of intellectual properties. It also proposes a system for this task, in addition to peer review of research outcomes, including development of portfolio analysis procedures for intellectual properties and establishment of an independent organization for evaluation. Which activity is evaluated again by other agency.

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This paper investigates the driving factors of overseas R&D by Japanese electronics firms, based on the 1991 and 2001 data. In the beginning of the 1990s, it is shown that the overseas R&D of Japanese electronics firms were mainly concentrated in North America, and the main purposes of these firms were the gaining of advanced knowledge and talent in these countries. However, 2001 data shows the local diversity of R&D activities, and the number of new R&D units' establishment was increasing especially in Asia. The importance of the demand-side factors of overseas R&D activities, such as supporting the local marketing or manufacturing activity, is rising especially since the 90s. The acquisitions of overseas R&D resources, called the supply-side factors, are also continued. These findings show that the overseas R&D by Japanese electronics firms is changing in the both direction.

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