This paper critically examines the application of "Autopoiesis" theory to business administration referencing the discussion in German business administration (Deutsche Betriebswirtschaftslehre). In more concrete terms, this paper points out that it is difficult to adopt Autopoiesis theory to management theory. The concept of "Autopoiesis" originates from biology meaning that a living system produces (and reproduces) its components through the network of its components. This concept was applied to social science by Niklas Luhmann, who thus constituted a unique social system theory. This concept has been introduced in business administration with the aim of overcoming the difficulties of environmentalism. In German business administration, researchers of St. Gallen University (St. Gallen Approach) and of Munich University (Munich Approach) applied Autopoiesis theory to their model. The St. Gallen Approach, on the basis of Luhmann's autopoietic social system theory, regarded corporate organizations as autopoietic systems. The Munich Approach, on the contrary, suggested a "conception of gradual autonomy" on the basis of Gunther Teubner's theory, and then ascertained corporate organizations in fact are not autopoietic systems. In our opinion, the former model assumes methodological holism; the latter assumes basically methodological individualism, but it also accepts the aspect of holism. Thus, Autopoiesis theory, on which the St. Gallen approach is based, takes the position of holism which leads to analytical difficulties. According to the St. Gallen approach, all elements in corporate organizations take the course of nature. Thus proponents of this model get into difficulties by claiming that management in corporate organization is needless. Therefore, we state that it is difficult to introduce Autopoiesis theory to business administration. Accordingly, we take up the problem of "Micro-Macro Link" in sociology and find that the Munich approach considers such a problem as "Micro-Macro Link". We then point out that, in business administration and particularly in management theory, the Munich approach is more appropriate than the St. Gallen approach which is based on Autopoiesis theory.

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Combining Collective Knowledge with Collective Strategy gives new foundations for the theory of knowledge management. Theories of Collective Knowledge/Intelligence and Collective Strategy can be linked together and Symbiotic Knowledge emerges as a new type of knowledge created from one of Collective Strategy, Conjugate Strategy. Conjugate Strategy is to create direct collaborative work among people or organizations belonging to a different type of industry. Collective Knowledge is defined as knowledge created jointly by independent interacting groups or individuals. The new dimension is given as a result of inter-disciplinary collaboration to create a new discovery or devices. Symbiotic Knowledge thus brings about the possibility of establishing Genetic Theory of Innovation. Symbiotic Knowledge embodies a new dimension for problem solving by collaboration between different fields of expertise. The applicability of Symbiotic Knowledge is wider in product development, and collaborative research by business-university alliance is a typical example. In this paper, University-industry collaboration in Toyama Prefecture is exemplified from this perspective. Under the Intellectual Cluster Creation Project organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, the Toyama Medical Bio-cluster was launched under the direction of the governor of Toyama Prefecture. A university-launched venture was established through cooperation by the University of Toyama Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Science, Toyama Industrial Technology Center, and local companies. They jointly developed cell chips to conduct research on lymphocyte and antibody gene analysis. The use of cell chips made it possible to obtain data from 250,000 micro-wells whereas the use of microscopy gave a single observable data. This new apparatuses were made out of Symbiotic Knowledge and they contributed to set forward a new dimension on the analytical method of lymphocyte.

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In this paper, an independent firm is defined as a Japanese firm that has both weaker ties to banks and weaker cross-shareholding ties, while a corporate group-affiliated firm is defined as a Japanese firm that has either stronger ties to banks or stronger cross-shareholding ties. In other words, the latter is a firm that seems to belong to a zaibatsutype industrial group. The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically whether there are statistically significant differences in corporate governance structure and firm performance between a subsample of 353 independent firms and 894 corporate group-affiliated firms. First, as a result of univariate comparisons and multivariate analysis, I find that independent firms display significantly higher levels of managerial equity ownership and higher equity ownership by foreign investors than corporate group-affiliated firms. On the other hand, there are no significant differences in the percentage of outside directors on the board and the board size between independent firms and corporate group-affiliated firms. Second, my empirical analysis shows that independent firms are more likely to use stock options than corporate group-affiliated firms. This suggests that managers of independent firms are more motivated to maximize shareholder value than those of corporate group-affiliated firms. I also find that the level of foreign ownership is positively related to the likelihood to use stock options and the percentage of outside directors on the board. These results imply that foreign investors may encourage managers to use stock options and increase the number of outside directors on the board in order to act in the best interests of shareholders. Finally, I document substantially better firm performance for independent firms. As described above, independent firms maintain relatively weak cross-shareholding relationships. This means that they are more vulnerable to hostile takeovers than corporate group-affiliated firms. Greater fears of hostile takeovers in independent firms and significant differences on incentive structure, including managerial ownership and stock options, between independent firms and corporate group-affiliated firms might be causes of better performance for independent firms.

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The field of strategy is relatively young, but research on competitive strategy has accumulated. The distribution and accumulation of resources at the corporate-level make possible the differentiation of competitive strategy. PPM, synergy, risk and resource-based theories are main schools of thoughts in the corporate-level strategy field. These theories have analyzed largely the logic of diversification strategy. But the fit between uncertain environment and corporate-level strategy will be very important to accumulate and use the resources. The speedy and reasonable decision-making of top management is needed for the fit. Therefore there is a need to build new theoretical framework for analyzing the perception of top management in decision making. The theory of dominant logic was published 1986, and will be a basic view point about corporate-level strategy. In this theory, strategy is conditioned by the perception frame of top management that had been made by personal values and experiences in many businesses. In this article, the objective is to analyze the corporate-level strategy in GE from the traditional-analytical view and the dominant logic view , and add another logic to the research of corporate-level strategy. J. Welch, who was the CEO of GE for 21years, is analyzed in this article. I analyze the reasons why GE was able to achieve a high ROI based on Welch's biography, annual report of GE and other data. There is evidence that the dominant logic had an important effect on decision-making. J. Welch had used the analogical inference based on the dominant logic. But his analogical inference had a few limitations on building a new logic for developing new business.

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This paper explores how and why an innovation, which originated with a failure of a certain company's R & D to deliver a successful breakthrough product, had been created through a research outcome transfer between companies without any collaborative alliance. Recent years, many literatures have discussed the "Open Innovation" which creates value by organically integrating outside ideas into inside firms. Traditional innovation was created through such a closed cycle that investing in corporate R & D for new technology and increasing the sales and profit would render continuous R & D investment to the firm. Many companies, however, have found traditional innovation unsustainable due to the change of environment around market and R & D. Then, one question is if some breakthrough product is invented and developed through open innovation, does it necessarily require any collaborative relationship? Under such a research question, a successful case of R & D for hypertension drug was picked up to investigate the process and the mechanism of open innovation at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. As a result, the firm had once found a brand-new and potential basic skeleton of chemical compound, but failed in a productization. Before that, Takeda had already filed the patent application and an overseas chemical company DuPont referred to the registered patent when it was open. Not knowing the Takeda's failure, DuPont had attempted to develop the chemical compound to squeeze through the problem due to some experience and knowledge about the mechanism of the research outcome. A few years later, DuPont made a presentation at an international conference, allowing Takeda to know their invention. Takeda had immediately restarted the project to find better chemical compound. Although another 60 companies all over the world also joined this competition, Takeda successfully found better one due to the abundant experience. Now, the sales of the product have marked the top position in the Japanese medicine market for all diseases.

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When major incidents, such as terrorism attacks or large-scale earthquakes, occur in metropolitan areas, the success of a wide-area disaster medical relief effort delivered under emergency conditions is largely dependent on the prompt operation of many complicated medical systems, which are very different from the systems usually required during ordinary times. The environment requiring a wide-area disaster medical relief effort consists of many casualties, with an uncertain outcome, and the number of injured people markedly exceeds the capacity of the medical systems designed to deal with regular conditions. Therefore, in the event of a major incident, it is important to go through the entire process of CSCATTT, which covers accurate assessment of situation, safety, command, communication and the three T's, i.e., triage, transport, and treatment. First of all, it is necessary to provide triage within a very short period of time to clearly differentiate severely injured victims from mildly injured victims. Secondly, it is necessary to mobilize and organize various medical resources, relay accurate information regarding multiple medical modules (triage, transport, and treatment). and organize the activities. Thirdly, it is necessary to establish a highly intensive medical system to provide intensive care to severely injured victims and a medical system that can efficiently provide an optimal standard care to a large number of mildly injured victims. In the present paper, wide-area emergency disaster medical organizations were considered from the perspective of high reliability organizations that are capable of operating continuously under severe environments and of preventing injury. They were analyzed as network-centric, high reliability organizations that can identify early signs of death and danger to avert preventable trauma deaths. This analysis clarified the practical characteristics of disaster medical organizations that are necessary for developing wide-area emergency disaster medical systems.

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This paper compares and analyzes the transformation of the employees' skills before and after the copy milling machine was introduced and brought the first significant technological innovation to the die production industry in post-war Japan. The analysis focuses on the press stamping die production for automobile outer-panel. The previous studies interpret that the influence of the copy milling machine has de-skilled the mastery or has reduced manual labor. However, they do not refer the new-skills required along with the technological innovation, which Attewell (1992) mentioned, would be necessary. This paper reexamines how the technological innovation with copy milling machine has contributed to de-skilling, and also defines and analyzes by following the types of skills referred herein the new-skills and re-skilling continuously required in the die production. The author reviewed his findings of research conducted on die manufacturers since 1993. He incorporated precedent researches in business management, cognitive psychology and labor economics into the concept of skills referred hereby, and classified such skills required in die production into 4 categories; "routine skill", "craft-type skill", "intellectual inference skill", and "managerial integration skill." The article concludes that the technological innovation by introducing copy milling machine promoted organizational awareness of the importance of intellectual inference skill and managerial integration skill, and also that it triggered for the first time the demands for human resource development while skills were simultaneously being separated and integrated.

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