This study explores how serendipity contributes to innovation and competitive advantage in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Focusing on Y’s Corporation, a small automotive company in Kyoto, Japan, the firm developed left-hand drive conversion technology from the founder’s car customization expertise. A critical turning point occurred when the founder experienced unexpected illness and left-sided hemiparesis, which inspired the application of this technology to adapted vehicles. This initiative led to the creation of a new market in Japan, providing disabled users with opportunities for independent driving. Drawing on effectuation theory, this study identifies entrepreneurial decision-making, organizational knowledge, and external partnerships as key factors for leveraging unforeseen events into innovation and market development.

This article examines the holacracy organizations, focusing on not only their structural characteristics but also the supplementary systems sustaining their successful implementation. Building on the strategic framework proposed by Mintzberg et al. (2009)2), together with Simons’ (1995)3) levers of control, the study highlights how organizations should balance strategic intent with adaptive responses. Case studies of Zappos.com and Plott reveal contrasting outcomes: Zappos successfully integrated supplementary systems—such as Market-Based Dynamics, customer-driven budgeting, and the Triangle of Accountability—that connected emergent initiatives to strategic intent, thereby achieving both flexibility and coherence. In contrast, Plott introduced flexible working arrangements but lacked mechanisms to align them with the overall strategy, depriving organizational coherence and direction. The analysis demonstrates that holacracy is not a self-sufficient model but rather a platform that requires well-designed supplementary systems to function effectively. For organizations considering its adoption, careful design and positioning of such systems are essential for achieving sustainable self-organization and innovation.

Radical innovation (RI) is vital for tackling structural challenges beyond incremental improvements. While traditional theory emphasizes technology and market needs, many recent RI cases originate from founders’ personal insights and questions, not customer surveys.

This study analyzed 40 RI cases and the artistic creation process, revealing a strong congruence. Both begin with a self-initiated “question” driven by intuition or interest. This leads to observation, research, discovery of triggers for solutions, and novel concept creation, often involving serendipitous leaps.

The analysis highlights intuition, subjectivity, and the “quality of questions” as key sources of RI, often overlooked by traditional problem-solving. Art Thinking, centered on personal inquiry, provides a valuable framework for understanding this process. Embracing this Art Thinking approach, prioritizing insightful questioning and fostering flexible exploration, is crucial for firms seeking creativity and future competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine QR-code payments, which have been gaining remarkable popularity among cashless payment methods in recent years, to verify their widespread use, and to examine future issues for cashless payments. As a result of the verification, QR code payments account for about 20% of the increase in the amount of cashless payments. It is also the second most used cashless payment method in the country after 2022, and also contributes to the diffusion of cashless payments with the highest rate of increase among all methods. The market response also indicated that QR code payment amounts will grow rapidly after 2019 due to the PayPay point reward campaign and competition, and that QR code payments are becoming established as a smartphone payment method after 2022. However, there is a possibility of cannibalization among payment methods in the cashless payment market. It is desirable for businesses to expand the use of cashless payment methods toward markets where cashless payment methods have not been introduced before, without cannibalizing each other’s.

This paper discusses the growing threat of misinformation and disinformation in the age of generative AI and social media, focusing on their societal risks and the challenges of verifying the authenticity of audio content. It introduces Evixar Audio Forensics (EAF), a technological approach that embeds forensic information directly into audio, enabling real-time verification without affecting the listening experience. The paper also situates EAF within broader national and international policy frameworks, including initiatives by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Hiroshima AI Process. Furthermore, it emphasizes that EAF should be positioned not only as a technical solution but also as a trust infrastructure for the future distribution of digital content.

This study reports on the design and educational significance of an ICT-based learning application that incorporates gamification to support beginners in bookkeeping. Initial learners often face significant cognitive and psychological barriers in understanding the classification of accounts and journal entries. To address this issue, the proposed application focuses on aiding learners in classifying basic bookkeeping accounts into five categories: assets, liabilities, net assets, revenues, and expenses. The app is structured as a game and utilizes intuitive UI/UX features such as tapping, time constraints, and visual feedback. It also includes gamified elements such as star accumulation and trophy rewards to maintain user motivation. Based on prior research in bookkeeping education, ICT learning tools, and gamification, this paper discusses how the application promotes better conceptual understanding and learner engagement. Furthermore, it suggests that the application can be used not only for formative assessment and individual feedback but also for the development of educational environments that foster accounting literacy from a managerial perspective.

This paper examines spontaneous team facilitation through the board game Silentalk. Facilitation is increasingly vital in corporate and public deliberation, yet traditional top-down or individual-dependent approaches suffer from centralized burden, compromised neutrality, and diminished engagement. Silentalk, a cooperative board game, uniquely addresses these through its rule design: communication is limited to “passing” pieces, requiring players to interpret meaning. This triggers spontaneous reflection, trust building, and collaboration. Leveraging Salen & Zimmerman’s “magic circle” concept, Silentalk immerses participants in a safe space, enabling rapid, iterative team learning cycles. Through comparative analysis (Pandemic, The Mind, The Crew) and a field case study, we elucidate the mechanisms and effects of Silentalk’s “spontaneous team facilitation”. Findings highlight Silentalk’s potential as a novel tool, offering design principles for scalable, facilitator-independent collaboration frameworks in organizational and societal settings.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan often encounter difficulties in developing products based on customer insights due to the strong influence and control of large companies. This study analyzes three case studies of companies in different industries that have effectively collected and utilized customer insights and examines the factors contributing to their success. Although there are many studies on product development utilizing customer insights, this study aims to identify the practical knowledge necessary for applying these findings to actual business practices.

The analysis identified two key strategies: (1) building and strengthening channels to collect customer insights as directly as possible, and (2) identifying lead users who are aware of latent needs and targeting their market segment in product planning.

Traditionally, Japanese railway companies have pursued business diversification as a strategy for sustainable growth. In recent years, however, their focus has shifted toward platform businesses that leverage areas along railway lines. By developing real estate and commercial facilities near stations, they now help support not just transportation but daily urban life.

Leveraging digital technologies, they have expanded into mobility services, payment systems, tourism, and logistics. Emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, and big data analytics have further enabled new revenue streams and enhanced customer experiences, generating value beyond conventional railway services.

As a result, they are building digital ecosystems along railway lines to drive further sustainable growth.

This study examines the development of recycling information platforms in the automotive industry as a strategic response to carbon neutrality and circular economy goals. While the European Union (EU) has established an integrated digital infrastructure, including Catena-X, to promote material traceability and compliance with the revised End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive, Japan is advancing its own national platform, the Ouranos Ecosystem. Despite its progress, Japan faces unique challenges, such as vertically integrated supply chains and limited IT capacity among small recyclers. This paper highlights the importance of early stakeholder participation, network effects, and strategic CSR in fostering sustainable platform growth. Additionally, it argues that proactive involvement in complex issues—such as the recycling of automotive shredder residue (ASR)—can enable Japan to exert leadership in global standardization efforts. Through comparative analysis of EU and Japanese approaches, this paper proposes pathways for Japan to align its data frameworks with international standards and expand its influence in Asian markets.

He has been working as a tatami craftsman for 44 years in tatami making. He was given the opportunity to learn about technical management and joined the Nishikawa Technology Management School.

During my encounter at this management school, I realized that up until now, I had relied solely on my own knowledge and had been looking at people, things, and money from a foolishly narrow perspective.

At the cram school, I learned that management is a futuristic study, and by studying “technical management,” I was able to learn about the existence and role of technology to make the dreams of corporate growth come true. From learning at cram schools, I realized that values are completely different in the world of craftsmen and managers.

This report summarizes how studying technical management at a management school has allowed the transformation of the process of changing from a tatami craftsman’s perspective to a management manager’s perspective. I hope that this paper, which has been organized as “becoming a manager,” will serve as a reference material for the craftsmen who have become managers and will be useful.

This study investigates three region-specific mobility-service cases and examines an AI-enabled mapping framework—the Service LLM-Aided Road-mapping Method (S. LARM). Using empirical data, we employed LLM to create roadmap prototypes that position each initiative across three planes: temporal sequences, business architectures, and thematic domain. The resulting three-axis tables visualized the intricate regional development context and revealed chains linking social and market drivers, institutional and technological enablers, and observable outcomes. Findings show that the mapping supports holistic understanding of complex mobility phenomena and that S. LARM’s partly automated workflow fosters collaborative, AI-augmented analysis while reducing manual effort. These results validate S. LARM as a research and practical tool for scholars and practitioners integrating AI into the evaluation analysis and planning on regional mobility-service and furthermore service innovation cases.

Amid growing global efforts toward carbon neutrality, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are gaining attention for their potential to reduce CO2 emissions. Japan promotes hydrogen as a key energy strategy, yet FCEVs face major adoption barriers, including the need for new infrastructure and high costs of both vehicles and hydrogen. Unlike hybrid vehicles, FCEVs require broader investment, which remains limited due to uncertain market prospects. This study examines the challenges of applying existing research to real-world FCEV diffusion in the automotive industry and provides insights into strategies necessary for accelerating their diffusion.

This paper reports a case study on the practical application of product planning by trainees, following the training outcomes of a prior study by Masumi and Tsuchiyama (2022), which addressed challenges in human resource development within small and med-tier companies. The trainees developed a business plan for a reading-aloud scoring service using voice recognition technology and subsequently developed an application. Through internal trial utilization and participation in exhibitions, they gained insights into the gap between technical feasibility and market needs, as well as the importance of customer-centricity. The results suggest that combining didactic instruction with practical experience is effective in enhancing trainees’ learning. While this is a case report, the aim is to continuously provide opportunities for practical application and to establish a more effective human resource development model by iteratively reflecting on the curriculum and practical experience.

I named and advocated the management attitude of continually challenging new innovations as “Ladder Management.” I believe that Ladder Management is what revitalizes logistics companies and helps them to survive in the fierce competition, and I hope that the success story of M’s Butsuryu in Yamanashi Prefecture will be explored in depth and that the lessons learned will be applied to other challenging companies. This paper begins with the study of one company, and I believe it will provide hints for the development and revitalization of Japan's logistics industry as a whole.

This study aims to identify the characteristics of effective programs for developing human resources capable of contributing to the creation of a sustainable society. To this end, it examines the human resource development program at University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa Prefecture as a case study, employing field research. The investigation revealed the program’s background and its efforts to expand its target audience to include working adults and residents of remote areas. It also identified specific measures designed to enhance accessibility and to facilitate collaborative learning among participants with diverse social and professional backgrounds.

This research note explores the transformative potential of Generative AI within the framework of service value creation. Drawing on diverse case studies, we examine the potential of Service LLM-aided Roadmapping framework (S.LARM) across three domains: education, community development, and AI/XR technology applications for societal well-being. In education, classroom practices incorporating generative AI for Doraemon cases and advanced IT services demonstrated positive impacts on student engagement and collaborative learning. In community development, analysis of smart city cases highlighted how resident participation and technological adoption jointly foster sustainable regional services. Furthermore, XR & AI-supported experiences have the potential to scope the main paths in pursuit of future elderly well-being. These findings demonstrate that S.LARM serves as an effective approach to organize complex societal challenges, creating an integrated knowledge base across the three domains.

Chapter 10, the final part of the series on “Digital Education for Executives in Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises” is “Digital Technology Management Strategy,” covering the overview of the series.

The Evolution of digital technology is exactly the history of my work that I have undertaken. I rode, yet never drawn, the great waves of technological innovations, and overcame them.

While it highlights aspects of history of technology based on my experiences, I truly feel I conveyed what innovation is in this five-year series. I end the series with still being wondering the rapid progress of DX.

The Higher Education Rankings or University rankings, we often see them in our daily lives. In this article, at first, we classify those rankings into three categories - publisher rankings, deviation value rankings, and global rankings - based on the users, creators, and target universities of rankings. Then we analyze their characteristics. Particularly, we compare the world's three major global rankings, and analyze the indicators used to create the rankings, identifying issues. After that, as an application of ranking creating process, we consider and discuss the under going selection for International Excellence Research Universities as a ranking making procedure, and point out five problems.

This paper proposes a new innovation model called “Meaning-Driven Radical Innovation” (MDRI), which integrates art thinking and humanities. The author argues that in the current volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, traditional innovation approaches like technology-push and market-pull are insufficient for sustainable corporate growth. These methods often lead to incremental improvements within existing frameworks and can fail, as exemplified by the LEGO Group’s crisis in the early 2000s.

The proposed MDRI model shifts the focus from “things” (technology and markets) to “meaning.” It is defined as an innovation that responds to the fundamental human quest for meaning, radically renewing existing value systems and cultural premises to pioneer new social, cultural, and economic landscapes. This approach combines the logical, structured inquiry of the humanities with the intuitive and creative leaps of art thinking. The paper outlines a six-stage process for MDRI: 1) Double Questioning, 2) Contextual Meaning Inquiry, 3) Eidetic Intuition, 4) Transcendent Creation, 5) Cultural Validation, and 6) Strategic Implementation & Sustainability. By asking “what does it mean?” rather than just “what can be made or sold?”, MDRI aims to create transformative innovations that can change cultural paradigms.