This research analyses diversity between partners in global alliances from a number of different points of view, such as corporate culture, values, capabilities, and knowledge. It attempts to clarify how the diversity influences the performance of the alliances, by formulating hypotheses and examining them through empirical analysis. The article presents three case studies of global alliances, and analyzes how their management and performance are influenced by partner diversity. The article also contrasts these partnerships with domestic alliances which have identical aims and frameworks. With the quantitative analysis using the public data, as well as qualitative analysis though interviews with the project managers of each alliance, it was shown that the combination of capabilities and knowledge of partners from different countries is the strength of global alliances. It is especially important for exploratory technical alliances to make good use of complementary strengths and different viewpoints of partners. This strength is limited in domestic alliances, where partners tend to have homogeneous capabilities and knowledge. On the other hand, the diversity in corporate culture and values makes global alliances more unstable and difficult to manage due to the inconsistency between partners in terms of recognition, reliability, and finding the solution to problems. These difficulties are likely to be enhanced as the number of partners increases. However, they can be overcome by establishing appropriate management structure and governance system suitable for the number of partners and the level of diversity involved in the alliances. More control over participating partners is required in the alliances if the number of partners and the level of their diversity are higher. In order to achieve the good performance of global alliances, it is necessary to design the management structure which can make use of the diversity in capabilities and knowledge each partner brings to the project, while overcoming the difficulties involved in the diversity of corporate culture and values.

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This paper focuses on Sanyo's case of engineer transfer between a corporate R&D and a manufacturing division and discusses how an interactive collaboration between the two divisions should be. Rechargeable battery market is somewhat unique in experiencing two of the major technology transitions in the 1990s. In this kind of the transition, particularly in terms of management of technology, it is extremely critical for a corporate R&D and a manufacturing division to collaborate closely, like taking care of both old and new technologies and making decision of shifting from the old to the new. This research focuses on the R&D management of Sanyo Electric Company in the 1990s. First, to address the case, two of the technical transitions are illustrated in terms of the imperative background to analyze, like an overview of the rechargeable battery market and the competition among Sanyo Electric and the other companies. Second, this paper analyzes the R&D activities in both corporate R&D and manufacturing division and the personnel transfer between the two divisions. One of the findings regarding personnel transfer is leaving the senior engineer in the corporate R&D, meanwhile transferring younger up-and-coming researchers to the manufacturing division. This fact leads to the discussion of how this interaction contributed to the outcome from the collaboration between a corporate R&D and a manufacturing division in a dynamic technological transition. Consequently, this paper found that a dynamic interaction functioned to offer solutions to the manufacturing division by ; younger engineers to facilitate the transfer of technology to the manufacturing division, while senior engineer left in the R&D division to explore new applications and to fine-tune technologies at R&D to customers' requirements consistently. With this combination of engineering team, Sanyo was able to manage the technology transitions tactfully.

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In this article, I examine the theoretical change of D. J. Teece, an advocate of Dynamic Capabilities Framework, by exploring its problemshifts. In early literatures, Teece introduces Williamsonian Transaction Cost Economics in order to explain the tendency of multinational or diversified firms to internalize their activities. However, from the perspective of complementarity, Transaction Cost Economics alone is not a sufficient solution to the problem. Therefore, he subsequently proposes that the factors of internalization should also include the costs of transferring knowledge, in addition to transaction costs. (Teece I) However, the concept of Teece I alone is still insufficient to explain the limitations of internalization and fails to describe how firms can or cannot respond to issues pertaining to innovation or environmental changes. To address these problems, Teece proposes that constraints rooted in path dependencies behave as an incentive for firms to externalize, and that organizational learning designed to broaden capabilities of firms could facilitate the utilization of external resources or capabilities and ultimately enable firms to adapt to environmental changes. (Teece II) Critics of Teece II, however, argue that broader learning alone does not enable firms to adapt to uncertain and rapid environmental changes. To address this point, Teece states the significance for firms to explore (or shape) and exploit future opportunities. Moreover, he proposes that firms should design intra-firm organizations to be nearly decomposable, which could allow them to shed path dependencies and increase the entrepreneurial abilities of members; firms should also build inter-firm institutions that could enhance the usage of external resources or capabilities. (Teece III) As summarized above, Dynamic Capabilities Framework is closely related to Transaction Cost Economics both historically and in substance. Both Teecian Dynamic Capabilities Framework and Williamsonian Transaction Cost Economics examine the issue of comparative institutions on the premise of interdependency and bounded rationality. Teece, however, attempts to describe comparative institutions in greater detail by taking into consideration interdependency and bounded rationality as beneficial factors, whereas Williamson argues the difference between markets and organizations by regarding interdependency and bounded rationality as a factor of unproductive rent seeking.

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There have been many human resource management system reforms seen in Japanese companies since early 1990s according to the collapse of the babble economy and intensified global competition. Many Japanese companies aim to reform especially wage and employee system which has been thought as the key factors of Japanese way of management system. In this paper, the author focus on human resource management reform especially from the viewpoint of the internal fit between human resource grading system and coordination mode in organization. In this paper, the organization is simplified as coordination system which has two patterns. One is called vertical coordination. The other is horizontal coordination. There are also two patterns of human resource grading system which are job-based grading system and skill-based grading system. Job-based grading system is regarded to be effective when it combines with vertical coordination. On the other hand, skill-based grading system is regarded to be effective when it combines with horizontal coordination. This paper examined the necessity of this internal fit by analyzing 321 Japanese companies. Empirical results are as follow : First, human resource grading system itself has no positive effect to the performance of the company. Second, there is a new pattern of human resource grading system which has strong integration of job-based and skill-based elements. This author defines this new pattern as "role grading system" which was seen most in this empirical research. It was also found that the role grading system had positive effect to performance only with strong integration of vertical and horizontal coordination mode. These results imply that there is a new pattern of human resource grading system which is able to be effective in contemporary Japanese company. But it is able to be effective only in appropriate fit between human resource grading and coordination mode in organization.

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Japanese firms have changed not only human resource management (HRM) for standard employees but also for non-standard employees in the past twenty years. However, previous studies tended to focus on HRM practices for standard employees without considering the change in HRM for non-standard employees when they investigated the effect of HRM practices for standard employees on their morale. We examine how the boundary of employment (one between standard and non-standard employees) in the firm moderates the effect of HRM practices for standard employees on their morale. The boundary of employment in the firm consists of (1) the job similarity between standard and non-standard employees and (2) the possibility of non-standard employees being hired as standard employees. Based on the equity theory, we develop two hypotheses about the moderate effects of the boundary of employment in the firm on the relationship between HRM practices for standard employees and their morale. Our first hypothesis is that the positive effect of long-term employment and hiring new graduates is larger at higher levels of job similarity between standard and non-standard employees than at lower levels of job similarity. Secondly, we hypothesize that the positive effect of performance-based evaluation and promotion is smaller when the possibility of being hired as standard employees for non-standard employees is higher. The results of OLS analysis by using two data sets of surveys support our hypotheses and suggest that the effects of HRM practices for standard employees on their morale are contingent on the boundary of employment in the firm. Research and practical implications of our study are discussed.

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The leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, a relation-based approach, holds a unique place in the field of leadership. Based on the social exchange theory, many LMX studies have exclusively examined the link between LMX and employee work role performance. Most of these studies have reported positive relationships between LMX and subordinate work role performance. However, questions remain regarding whether highquality LMX always improves employee work role performance. The present study attempts to examine the interactive effect of LMX with individual differences (organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) in this study) on employee work role performance. Furthermore, little is known about the main effect of LMX and OBSE on employee performance or the joint effect of both on employee performance in East Asian countries in particular. The purpose of this study is therefore twofold : (1) to estimate the main effects of an employee's LMX and OBSE on his or her work role performance, including extra- and career-role performance, in Korea ; (2) to investigate the interactive effects of an employee's LMX and OBSE on his or her work role performance (i.e., extra- and career-role performance) using self-verification theory. In doing so, we expect this study to make three major contributions to the field. First, it extends past research that has explored the independent effects of LMX and OBSE in the two separate literatures by examining the interactive effects of both of these constructs in predicting the work role performance of employees. Second, this study broadens previous empirical work by focusing on testing the effects of LMX and OBSE on multiple forms of work role performance, including team-, organization-, and career-role performance. Finally, it provides evidence to generalize the relationships among LMX, OBSE, and the work role performance of employees in an East Asian culture by demonstrating self-verification motives by using a sample of Korean employees.

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