JSSPRM will create an award system this year, based on the author's review on the mission of the Society. Our interest lies in management and policy issues related to science and technology as practical and interdisciplinary researches. Research of this kind is susceptible to criticism for alleged "uselessness" and "lack of scientific self-sufficiency". We should counter this by presenting consequent research results. This "consequence" must be a criterion for the awards. The practical interdisciplinary research is a field where discipline-based approaches are integrated with mission-oriented development. What should be pursued here is usefulness in more fundamental, more generic, and wider and longer-term view, supported by logical consequence. More specifically, analyses on dynamic processes and for the future are of prime importance, and development of concepts, models, tools, instruments and methodology for that purpose will form a substantial part of our efforts. Accumulation of such activities should lead to maturity of the field in which a new paradigm, comprising new specific disciplines, will be established.

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Panel data often serve as the basis for innovation analysis on corporate R&D activities and their economic impacts. Unlike simple time series or cross section data, panel data permit analysis of dynamic aspects of innovation activities involving cross-sectional (e.g. cross-enterprise) developments. This article reviews the methodology of panel data analysis as exemplified by an estimation of production function at the corporate level. The explanatory variables in the production function at the corporate level may include factors of production, such as labor and capital, quality of the management and employees, brand image, organizational management, and many more. Such qualitative factors are not usually treated as explicit explanatory variables in estimation of the production function because of difficulty in statistical treatment, but they do bias estimation. An advantage of estimation based on panel data is freedom from such biases. In practice, "fixed effect" models are often used in which unobserved variables are assumed to be constant over the period of observation. It is known, however, that the fixed effect model enlarges the influence of errors in explanatory variables on the estimation results. The article describes a model for evaluating the relative influences of unobserved variables and of data errors. It also presents an overview of the instrumental variable technique, which is indispensable for dealing with the problem of endogenicity of explanatory variables, taking into account the characteristics of panel data. Since the estimated production function is highly dependent of the estimation technique used, choosing an appropriate method is of prime importance in statistical estimation using panel data.

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The present article overviews the covariance structure analysis, gives a summary of its important concepts, and answers some common questions, before describing as an example a covariance structure analysis conducted by the authors on a questionnaire survey on the national projects. The article intends to illustrate the applicability of the technique to innovation studies, and to stimulate interested analysts to better assimilation of it. The example presented here analyzes the management of national projects in terms of their ripple effects that help the R&D and business in participant companies. More specifically, the effects of open discussion on the subjects and tasks in an early stage of a project are compared with those of modifications in the subjects, resources distribution or general policy based on an intermediate evaluation, with some discussion of the results.

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The article reviews scientometrics as a methodology for policy science. Science and technology policy necessitates measurement and evaluation of the current scientific activities in order to develop future steps. Scientometrics, which studies methods, objects and effectiveness of measuring scientific activities, should therefore be an important constituent of policy science. The term "scientometrics" was coined after "psychometrics" and "sociometrics", which share quantitative view of the subject of study. The present work first shows how scientometrics differs from bibliometrics or library and information science to indicate the need of a theory on what aspect of scientific activity is measured quantitatively. It then presents a historical overview of scientometrics in four phases: pre-history, establishment of the principle, development and institutionalization of indicators, and application to evaluation. The article further reviews practical methods including analysis of the number of reports, citation and co-citation analysis, term and co-term analysis, and forming and combination of indicators. Discussion on the possibility of and potential issues on quantification concludes the article.

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The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of standard procedures for a basic exploratory social network analysis. Social network researches have experienced a great change in 1998. Inspired by Watts and Strogatz, huge number of natural scientists started to pay attention to networks and have searched for common behaviors of and laws governing social, natural, informational and various kinds of networks. Both social network analysts with sociological or organizational backgrounds and natural or engineering scientists (e.g. physicists, mathematician, medical scientists, information scientists, AI researchers) who share their interest in network feel the need for mutual collaboration. The need is serious, yet there exist many obstacles for successful collaboration. Lack of attention to prior researches and differences in definition of concepts, in usage of parameters, in authorships are the examples. For successful interdisciplinary collaboration, I propose a framework of standard procedures for a basic exploratory social network analysis. My framework does not require any prior knowledge of programming nor super-high-power computing system. As I assume users of this framework to be beginners or middle-class network analysts, required are middle-class windows machine, UCINET, Pajek, EXCEL and common statistical package.

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Technology foresight has been practiced in various levels including enterprises, industrial organizations, scientific associations, local authorities, government agencies, states, and even on an international level. It varies in time scale from near to far future, as well as in participants, processes and techniques according to different purposes. Technology foresight in Japan has been applied to prioritizing R&D investments in Science and Technology Basic Plan. Foresight methodologies have evolved reflecting changes in social and economic circumstances of science and technology, including the recent global trend to emphasis on innovation which demands outcomeoriented science and technology policy. Each methodology has its own merits and demerits; the fittest for the purpose of a study must be chosen. Sometimes more than one methodology is combined in a complementary manner, as in the eighth Technology Foresight Survey, which comprised socio-economic needs analysis (vision of society in future and its needs by nonscientists), study on rapidly developing research areas (based on bibliometric analysis), and scenario analysis of major areas in science and technology by outstanding individuals, in addition to the standard Delphi survey. This was the first attempt of comprehensive foresight on a national level based on a combination of various methodologies. Science and technology foresight should evolve to cope with the everchanging environment as an important tool of policymaking.

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In this paper, we focus on the hybrid social simulation that is a combination of gaming simulation by human agents and agent based simulation by machine agents. The hybrid social simulation makes it possible to develop social informed and consent process by extending our communication mode. An agent based simulation supports construction, simulation and evaluation of our decision scenarios. However, a gaming simulation supports human understanding the scenarios. Social simulation gives not the model depending on the universal low but the model for the exploration of future possibilities. It gives a constructed social reality that should be shared and used for planning and evaluating the future scenarios. In other words, the social & organizational planning should gives a shared internal model for understanding the future scenarios. The hybridization of agent based simulation and gaming simulation will help us to share the simulated internal model for the scenario.

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Leading semiconductor trading companies in Japan play an active role in promoting semiconductor products today. By examining the corporate strategies at these companies, we discovered that semiconductor trading houses are trying to implement the same business models. They describe themselves as "solution providers" to semiconductor users and try to reinforce their solution providing capabilities by improving their technological skills and increasing the number of new sources. Although they are implementing almost the same business method, the financial performance of these companies varies. We can attribute the differences to dissimilarities in "business systems." Some examples of the differences in business systems are corporate resources such as accumulated know-how and relationships with business partners, which are developed as a result of corporate activities. In order to make a corporate strategy effective, it is important to be aware of the components of business systems.

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In order to obtain the best output of R&D projects sponsored by official funding agencies effectively and efficiently, proper setting and management of R&D objectives is of great importance. In this paper, the actual present condition to set objectives of R&D projects supported by an official funding agency was examined, quoting examples of New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization. As a result, it has been realized that there is still some room for improvements as to realization of precondition and background at the stage of setting of objectives, consideration of characteristics of projects, and necessity to set ambitious objectives and their flexible amendment. Then, an optimum way to set objectives and proper management for officially supported projects was proposed from the technological, economic, social and policy-making points of view.

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This paper compares human genome projects in the U.S. and Japan and explores delegatory problems between scientists and policy-makers in Japan, using Guston's principal-agent framework that incorporates the concept of boundary organizations by analyzing how scientists effect policy-making processes institutionally. The research identifies the absence of boundary organizations in Japan's human genome project. The two distinct functions of boundary organizations in the U.S. are to provide for the appointment of scientists to science related agencies and the regulated scientific market formed by science advisory organizations. However, in the Japanese policy making process, neither of these functions is addressed.

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Researchers in large Japanese manufacturing companies have demonstrated a decreased motivation in R&D activities. In addressing this problem, we analyzed the effect of motivation management by integrating organizational and individual styles for motivating R&D personnel. To integrate both styles, we focused on the ambitions of R&D personnel. Through collaboration with a large Japanese automobile company, we investigated how well managers can motivate subordinates by stimulating their future career ambitions. To obtain the quantitative data of the investigation, questionnaires were administered to subordinates. As a result of analysis, we confirmed the positive impact on work motivation by management toward stimulating ambition and motivating work. In addition, we proposed a hypothesis; two processes, creating ambition and connecting work and ambition logically, must be done for managers to motivate their subordinates.

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