Using data from the Japanese listed firms, this paper examines the impact of excess resources on R&D and corporate venture capital (CVC) activities. The results indicate the following four points: 1) excess resources facilitate both R&D and CVC activities with some curvilinear relationships; 2) an increase of R&D expenditures reduces a ratio of R&D expenditures in non-dominant product fields; 3) a ratio of foreign stockholders positively affects R&D expenditures with a curvilinear relationship; and 4) a higher profit ratio decreases both R&D activities and venture investment. Based on these results, the paper discusses why Japanese firms could not produce innovation while accumulating massive excess resources that supposedly facilitate resource allocation on innovative activities.

This study investigates the effect of different types of technology transfer offices (TTOs) on university technology transfer performance using national-level data on industry-academia col laboration in Japan. First, three types of TTOs were identified based on their organizational structures—internal, external-integrated, and external-extensive. Then, using Poisson regression and a population-averaged model, two following hypotheses were tested with supportive results: (1) universities using an external TTO perform better in terms of patent licensing income than those using an internal TTO; and (2) smaller universities are more likely to perform better with a dedicated, external-integrated TTO. These findings suggest that TTOs should be independent of the university’s bureaucratic system. However, a high degree of proximity for communication with researchers is essential.
This study presents implications for government innovation policy, suggesting that universities should be encouraged to select a TTO type that aligns with their needs and objectives and to carefully weigh independence and proximity when choosing a type. It also suggests that researchers should consider the history and reality of each country’s innovation system when analyzing industry-academia collaboration. Additionally, we provide a brief overview of Japan’s technology transfer policies.

Recently, an increasing number of researchers in universities and other research institutions have been relocating to other research institutions in Japan and overseas as a team unit. However, while there have been many studies on the intra- or interorganizational mobility of human resources, few studies have focused on the patterns of inter-organizational mobility (individual or team-based mobility). This study clarifies the determinants of team-based mobility using a case of researchers affiliated with universities and other research institutions moving to overseas research institutions from the vantage point of researchers’ informal and formal networks.

The paper examines how universities engage in university-industry collaboration (UIC) to foster innovation. Compared to the special issue on UIC published in Organizational Science in 2000, the paper comprehensively explores current university engagement. The paper provides the following research issues as a consequence of the literature review and case studies: 1) conflict between academic organizations and individual researchers, 2) the diversity of universities’ involvement in publicly-traded university start-ups, and 3) the emergence of the idea of sociality.

This paper sheds light on a continuous change process of business models, which leads to a divergent change in business models. Prior studies on business model changes have assumed business models’ inertia and focused on episodic and divergent change. Although a few studies reported cases in which deviant models have arisen through continuous change, the whole picture of the process has yet to be obtained. To have a better understanding, we conducted a longitudinal case study.
We selected Secoma’s business model change as a critical case. Secoma, running a convenience store chain, has been making local changes cumulatively and deviating from the existing business model. We traced this process.
The analysis reveals dynamics that induce, spread and amplify divergent local changes over time. These findings also imply that the dynamics are driven by two organizational forces that have been assumed as sources of inertia—the organizational cognitive process affected by the existing business model and the organizational tendency to keep the current configuration.
The results indicate that business model experimentation, which prior studies have presented as a prescription for business model innovation, may have side effects: eliminating drivers of continuous changes, which could lead to divergent changes.

We investigated a model of forming entrepreneurial intention based on the theory of planned behavior for Japanese university students. Data were collected by the 2018 Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS). The analysis result confirmed that attitude toward behavior and entrepreneurial self-efficacy increased entrepreneurial intention. A positive interaction between the two factors was also found; if either of them was increased, the other could be risen more, resulting in a significant impact on entrepreneurial intention. In addition, entrepreneurship education and university environments that support entrepreneurial activities could increase intention. We contributed that several factors forming intention pointed out by previous studies were verified in Japan as well as in other countries.