A cross-functional collaboration is one of measures to achieve an innovative output. In regard to product design, a joint work with research and development engineers potentially leads to novel and commercially successful designs since it may provide solutions to technical limitations or unique subject matters to design; however, it may also reduce autonomy of designers, thus the team sometimes prevents a realization of ideal but technically challenging designs originated from designers. This paper aims to discover conditions for successful collaborations between designers and engineers. Using Japanese patent applications and design rights registrations from four major Japanese home electronics manufacturers, we investigated the effect of inventing experience on individual design performance based on the fact that experience enhances creativity by providing various inspirations and substantial solutions to realize such inspirations. The empirical outcomes show that the breadth of inventing experiences of co-workers improves performance significantly only when designers have adequate design experiences. Out estimations also reveal that degree of autonomy of design sections have a significant positive influence on design performance. Our study discovers that designer’s autonomy is a key element to achieve successful product designs. Also, we confirm an importance of product design development team composition management from the viewpoint of experiences they have.

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The objective of this study is to determine the reason for companies’ selection of different methods of providing customer value through services in the Business Intelligence (BI) market and to ascertain the results obtained from these selected methods. Analysis is conducted through case studies of two typical BI vendors. The results indicate that while one vendor focuses only on providing the technological value of services, the other provides services for customers’ business processes as well, in addition to the technological value. The reason for selecting different methods is derived from the differences in customers’ characteristics and needs for each vendor. Additionally, it is considered imperative that providing technological value will be difficult because of the efforts required to improve the functions of BI software.

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between activation of middle-aged and older white-collar workers and that of the organization itself. Previous studies have shown that the factors of activation of middle-aged and older white-collar workers were promoting psychosocial development (generativity) in middle adulthood and in being a self-directed person. This study aims to investigate the effects of those factors on the activation of the organization based on the I-I chart (Takahashi, 1993), a measurement of the organizational activation. We conducted a questionnaire survey with white-collar workers in conjunction with general incorporated foundation “P” to research and educate on sales activity. The participants were 291 workers who were employed by companies (Number of surveys distributed: 291; Number of surveys collected: 265; Collection rate: 91%). The major findings were as follows: (1) Promotion of self-directedness and development of generativity affected activation of middle-aged and older white-collar workers and of the organization. (2) A moderate effect of self-directedness was found on the impact of activation; development of generativity of a highly self-directed person has a high possibility of increasing his/her activation. However, developing generativity in a person with low self-directedness may diminish activation.

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This paper discusses how and why firms fail to innovate through collaboration. Faced with highly fluctuating environments, firms increasingly rely on R&D collaboration to produce multiple innovations in sequence. However, as some scholars have pointed out, a lot of collaborations fail to invent technological breakthroughs, or fail to commercialize it. Despite increasing attention about this tendency, most of prior research have only enumerated success factors of collaborative technological development, so firms’ internal processes needed to commercialize are not discussed until now. The result of quantitative analysis using a questionnaire survey conducted for the collaborative R&D projects supported by NEDO (N=128) and follow-up case studies uncover two points. First, to innovate through collaboration, innovators have to (1) acquire technological outcome by communicating with other organizations, and (2) acquire legitimacy for launch by communicating with other internal divisions. Second, because of innovators’ autonomy-coordination dilemma, these two directional communications fall into a trade-off relationship. This second point suggests the fundamental reason many firms fail to innovate through collaborations.

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This research explores the mechanism of organizational decline in Japanese companies from a cross-sectorial perspective, addressing two research questions: (1) Is there a common mechanism of organizational decline among failing Japanese companies? , and (2) Do cultural factors influence this mechanism? Three analyses were conducted: (1) case studies of failing Japanese companies, (2) quantitative and comparative analyses of both failing and succeeding companies, and (3) quantitative analysis applying the cultural psychology framework. A prototype of the failing mechanism was derived from seven cases of failing companies and four cases of high-performing companies. The prototype considers three factors as follows: (1) decision-making and intra-organizational coordination processes are highly harmony-oriented and promote strong friction avoidance; (2) the executive promotion process is strongly political, and persons with allegiance to bosses are rated high and promoted; and (3) senior executive competence is biased toward political maneuvering inside organizations, and leadership is strongly inclined toward maintenance rather than performance. These factors are interrelated and reinforce one another, implying that they constitute a self-maintaining cycle (“adaptation impediment cycle”). This cycle causes failing companies to make mistakes such as excessive capital investments and avoidance of business restructuring, which result in failure. Quantitative and comparative analyses of both failing and succeeding companies verified this prototype. Applying the cultural psychology framework, a third survey was conducted to determine how cultural factors influence the prototype using data collected from six companies of the same conglomerate. The decision-making and intra-organizational coordination characteristics were found to be related to cultural self-construal, which is dominant in East Asia in a statistically significant way. This implies that the prototype is accelerate by cultural factors in Japan. Management initiatives were also found to be influential, implying that management could control cultural factors.

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This paper discusses a reason of co-evolution of technology and standard. In particular, we focus on standardization process that drive the evolution of technology, and we study a case analysis of co-evolution of wireless technology and standard about the wireless LAN. In result, we derive the concept of “a dynamism of contexts of meaning” to the generation of co-evolution process. In this paper, contexts of meaning are defined as the combination of the significance to devise standard and technology to realize standard. Significance to devise a standard the needs of the customer or a social problem, and so on. We think that at least two directions are in a dynamism of contexts of meaning. First, it is called “technological solution approach”. It may occur a dynamism of contexts of meaning by technological correspondence without changing significance. Second, it is called “redefinition solution approach”, and may occur by redefinition of the significance and put a technology corresponding to the significance together. If we consider a dynamism of contexts of meaning, we can design a standard effectively by thinking for variety of the significance or searching for the technology. It is effective on this occasion to consider standardization process such as technological solution approach or redefinition solution approach, and the change of the standard may produce technology evolution.

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In the movie industry, total domestic box-office revenues for 2012 were the highest ever, and excellent directors won Prizes at the International film festivals. Japanese Movies however, have not permeated worldwide, and for continuous development of the Japanese movie industry, we must promote copyright within this business abroad. This paper investigates the actual situations of production and sales, securing of sources of revenues through consideration of the cultural/economical evaluation scale, and make a proposal of the subject between the domestic situation of production and international marketing from various views. The Japanese movie distribution companies have given priority to the domestic market, not to international marketing, and for a long time, which means the expertise and skills within the international marketing have never constructed and taken over the domestic. It would seem that the audience numbers worldwide grew sluggishly. There are underlying problems that cultural/economical evaluation scales haven’t defined in public, in particular for the new comers. There is no proper or defined occupation or channel of analytical advice with regards to new comers in the industry and as such the media industry prefers those with industry experience. This illustrates the imbalance between the Japanese production systems and the international marketing strategies, and contributes to its disfunction. In the case of international marketing, it is difficult to obtain information therefore contributing to the domestic industry being much closed including less long term media mix strategy. Before that, the international market and the domestic market operate differently. It hasn’t established continued sales of channel in domestic market, make it difficult to sell copyrights. On the other hand, some movie distribution companies try to sell the motion pictures, regardless fixed media as Japanese contents. It is essential for us to prove the value of Japanese movie contents through defining cultural/economical evaluation scales. That helps to spread producing works worldwide, and increase the cases of marketing during the planning phase.

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Sales strategy that uses free digital distribution is a new business model in the creative industry. However, it has raised many important management questions the extent to which free digital distribution either crowd out or complement consumption of products. In this paper, we analyze the effect of free digital distribution on physical sales in Japanese music market. The results showed that the complementary effect of free digital distribution is greater than a substitution effect, so free digital distribution has a significant positive impact on the number of physical sales. It was found that the number of physical sales increases by about 0.27% when free digital distribution views increase by 1%. Furthermore, while a more detailed analysis revealed free digital distribution of works by unknown producers has a positive effect on physical sales, while free distribution of works by well-known producers have no effects. In addition, free digital distribution of long movies has a strong positive effect on the number of physical sales than one of short movies. It was also found that free digital distribution of pop music and idol music has a positive effect on physical sales, while free digital distribution of other music have no effects.

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Japanese animation industry has a big contradiction. Despite they have made great honorable animation, animators (people who draws motion picture) cannot get enough wages. Why their work are not adequately rewarded even they have a capability to produce excellent work? Involved stakeholders, academic researchers, and policy makes have shared similar concerns on this issue. Several policies had been implemented but it doesn’t yield sufficient outcomes. “Anime Mirai” policy is the new policy approach to solve this problem. Anime Mirai was planned mainly by the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA), and implemented by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Through Anime Mirai, policy makers aimed to develop human resources which sustain the creation of Japanese animation ecosystem. JAniCA and Cultural Affairs has same point of view on Japanese animation that current animation company haven’t capability to train young animators. In Anime Mirai scheme, JAniCA provided fund to the selected animation companies, these companies produced the new original animations to train young animators. Through Anime Mirai process, turn-over rate of young animators turns low and animation companies has own profitable copyright product such as Little Witch Academia (Trigger) and Death Parade(Madhouse). As of the policy implication of Anime Mirai, organizational failure could be absorbed by “gemba-oriented” governmental funding scheme.

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A lot of research on start-up conditions focuses on the social environment, i.e., trait or occupation of his/her parents, level of living, educational settings, intercourse of acquaintances or friends, enterprising settings, psychological appraisal for start-ups, financial support for start-ups, etc. It is true that some financial support or subsidy plays an important role for start-ups especially at initial stage. But such kind of support does not always make start-ups successful in the long run. Financial support seems not sufficient but necessary condition. This paper proves that the sufficient condition for star-ups stems from so-called "strong ties,” i.e., spouses, lovers, work associates, bosses, subordinates, business counterparts, and acquaintances or friends, etc. That finding is verified through the actual investigation which was done in September 2014 by the internet questionnaire toward entrepreneurs (n=1,030) in Japan who have kept their own businesses more than 2 years. While so-called "weak ties" are said to play an important role in occupational transfer processes of white-collar workers, this study illuminates that "strong ties" rather than weak ties play a crucial role in star-up processes.

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This empirical paper revisits the fundamental issue of family business in Japan or the magnitude of family business, highlighting the family’s ownership and influence in the listed family firms. The research questions are: how is the family influence transformed since its founder, and which is more important to maintain the family influence, management or ownership? Analyzing every firm listed in stock markets in Japan, to find out the family influence, tracing it from the founder, the paper contributes to the literature with the following findings: First, the paper identifies 1,898 family firms or 54.8% of listed in the stock markets in Japan, far exceeding the literature. Second, categorizing those family firms regarding the family’s influence both in ownership and management, it analyzes the family’s influence to model the family firm transformation. Third, recognizing the interaction between the family’s influence in the ownership and management, it argues that family’s ownership is most fundamental to exert its influence, and the process to weaken its influence is seldom reversible. The paper addressed three implications, for policy makers, family members, and researchers, before arriving at the conclusion. The limitation of the paper is the lack of the historical observation of the ownership dilution process, which, if added, would have given more dynamic picture of the family firm transformation process. Further research needs to be made not only in this respect, but also the global comparison to make the paper’s findings more universal.

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Companies that have success in the product of modular architecture, easily to get stuck in “The Modularity Trap”. What are the factors for next successful innovation for these companies? This paper follows the transition of the product architecture of semiconductor exposure tools which have large scale complexity. Semiconductor exposure tool is the ultimate integrative type of product as typified by the automobile. According to previous discussions represented by Fujimoto (2001), Japanese companies have strong points of making integral architecture product by utilizing much knowledge beyond the boundary of companies and integrated human resources. In fact, a Japanese exposure manufacture, Nikon had attained around 50% market share until the mid-1990s by leveraging overwhelming technological innovation capability. However, Nikon have been caught up by ASML (a Dutch company), which entered the market later. In this paper, we compare ASML succeeding in innovation despite its modular architecture with Nikon not succeeding in innovation despite integral architecture.

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The purpose of this research is to reveal policy of women’s activity promotion in 6 regional banks in Tohoku district (northeast) in Japan which are financial institutions taking the leadership in regional industry, and to grasp the current situation of results and to review their issues. Due to progressing of low birthrate and longevity, "20-39-year-old female population" is decreasing significantly in this district. Some area has been enormous damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in March 2011. In the environment of such present condition, we have researched gender equality, expansion of women’s decision making, and support for promotion of employee of women in those banks through interviews and officially announced materials. The research revealed various attempts such as career support of women in those banks, or business support of local women by forming project teams. The research has also revealed that there are differences in degree of interest among the banks. Some banks “offer women the same employment system as men”, and some banks “positively utilize women’s performance”. But we find the problem about the shortage of women’s human resources in those banks, so we think it is necessary to continue the attempt to consciously expand women’s occupational activity fields for the formation of various models that assume a long-term employment of women.

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I explored the impact of human resource management (HRM) practices or simply management practices on performance by taking into consideration national culture among other contextual factors, based on evidence from Japan and the United States. I built the hypotheses on the relationships between management practices and performance, drawing not only on the perspectives commonly used so far in the strategic human resource management (SHRM) literature, namely the universalistic and contingency ones, but also on knowledge and insights from cross-cultural research. Then, I empirically tested the hypotheses, using questionnaires returned from 241 and 120 production teams of Japan and the U.S., respectively. I confirmed the effect of relevant management practices on manufacturing performance among production teams from two countries as the universalistic or convergence perspective predicts. I also captured the moderating effect of national culture on the relationships between management practices and performance, proving the efficacy of the cross-cultural perspective in conducting SHRM research across countries. This research makes some theoretical contributions. First of all, it makes a contribution to the development of a new research domain of international SHRM because I conducted this research in an effort to answer the call from some scholars to conduct SHRM research in the international setting. Second, this research makes a theoretical contribution to comparative HRM studies and cross-cultural research in that it revealed that not only can differences in national culture explain divergence in management practices, they can also determine the relations between management practices and performance.

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The article attempts to elucidate why incumbent leading standard setters lose their grounds through technology spillovers in the surge of standardization. We conduct the analysis of patent forward citations from essential patents (SEP), which are declared linked with standard specifications, to proprietary patents in the telecommunication industry. The results show that by assimilating relevant knowledge from leading standard setters, semiconductor suppliers attempt to build their knowledge mainly related to “interface” between telecommunication systems and mobile phones. The results also reveal that a major semiconductor supplier, Qualcomm, plays as a hub which accelerates the knowledge spillovers from leading standard setters to other semiconductor suppliers. These findings are expected to expand the debates of standard setters' knowledge management and provide managerial implications for practitioners.

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This research argues that how a Danish medical device firm has established global competitiveness with collaboration of professional users. As a background, Nordic firms have recently attracted to their strategic management and new product development with the Japanese researchers and practitioners. From the view of user innovation and global niche market, we interviewed senior managers of a Danish medical device firm which has boasted the top sales in the certain diagnostic products in the global market. Our exploratory key findings are (1) open innovation with academia at the early stage, (2) collaborative innovation with professional users at practical use, and (3) the “Kaizen” activity incorporated into the research and technical development process. We imply that more frequent practical experiences at Gemba (workplace) are critical to R&D researchers and product designers for creating global competitive products as strategic practice.

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This paper examines the value creation in product development with a focus on Japanese consumer electronics. In previous research, it is purported that customer value consists of benefits and costs. However in prior research, how benefits are actually formed is often overlooked. In this paper, customer benefits are defined as the realization of a solution for customer needs and desires for their lifestyle. Customer benefits are composed of those that are measured or those that are not. When the latter unmeasured benefits are designed for product functions, evaluation by human senses is necessary. However, these senses felt by customers are different for each person in the market. Reflecting only one opinion will not always be successful. Product development is collaborative work with various departments and between individuals. If the development objective is sensuous and ambiguous, it can be considered that how it will be achieved will be a problem for companies. How these kinds of problems are actually resolved is considered to contain implications about how to create benefits as the product value. The research method is mainly a semi-structured interview survey about the product development process. Interviews are conducted to 22 people belonging to seven different Japanese companies, from December 2010 to July 2014. The results of these studies, the process of creating benefits, are as follows. These benefits are sensuous, and are difficult to be communicated with their colleagues. Every developer has a virtual sense of what the customer would think of as its benefits. In this paper, these senses felt by these developers are defined as a "virtual benefit". Therefore, product prototype as a common indicator of a particular sense of the development objectives is used. By repeatedly evaluating the senses created by the prototype, the virtual benefits multiple developers have are converged as one sensation. Because this process of convergence is affected by the sense of each individual, it has a possibility becoming a redundant process with much trial and error. In order to avoid this, informative communication is required. In this paper, it is argued that in the case of this kind of development, there should be shared senses and knowledge.

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In the previous studies, the existence or lack of product design capability was often the base for evaluation of parts suppliers. In this type of framework, most of the Asian local tier 2 suppliers are provided with the mere low rating. Meanwhile, we proposed the three evaluation axes composed of the capability of the product design and production process design as well as the domain design. This study is the evaluation of Asian local tier 2 suppliers based on the new framework. The analysis makes sense as clearly shown in the results of our case study. Firstly, we have observed the synergy effects between product design and production process design, and consequently verified the development path of suppliers within the stage of supplied drawing. Secondly, we have also clarified a discrepancy between Japanese, Thai and Chinese suppliers in terms of capability building. More specifically, Japanese suppliers relatively strengthen product design and production process design meanwhile Thai suppliers seem to more focus on domain design. As for Chinese suppliers, they relatively stay at the initial stage of development path since they can get increased sales by filling orders for the existing customers that enjoy sustained growth of domestic car market. Over all, we succeed to present two unique evolution paths of “manufacturing oriented” and “domain diversification oriented” for the Asian local tier 2 suppliers through our study.

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Manufacturers in Japan were hurt by the strong yen after the 2008 financial crisis and then by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Manufacturers rushed to establish new sourcing strategies such as relocation of production facilities overseas, domestic production shifting, and restructuring of global procurement systems. As a result, gemba capabilities were devastated via the hollowing out of manufacturing functions. However, the 2012 adoption of new economic policies, popularly known as Abenomics, has had a positive influence on the Japanese economy, which has quickly recovered. The present paper focuses on the period from 2011 to 2014, and attempts to evaluate the sourcing strategies that were undertaken by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the viewpoint of dynamic capabilities theory. First, to clarify the recent economic turbulence as it compares to past turbulence, we conduct text-mining analysis of 4,067 newspaper articles dated from 1980 to 2014, extracted using the key word “hollowing out”. Second, after a literature review of dynamic capacities studies, we propose an empirical model to examine the relationships between business environment dynamism, sourcing strategy, absorptive capacity (AC), gemba competitiveness (procurement, manufacturing, and marketing), and performance. Third, we conduct a questionnaire survey targeting 1,333 manufacturers. The result of the analysis shows how sourcing strategy affects business and organizational performance through maintaining current AC and building new AC. Lastly, our analysis indicates the co-existence of two types of SMEs: one employs a global strategy to reconfigure overall competitiveness and the other focuses on the domestic market to strengthen existing manufacturing capabilities.

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The purpose of this research is to examine the function of gratitude in Japanese organization. In previous studies, the emotion of gratitude has been examined from the perspective of positive psychology; therefore, it has not fully been shown whether gratitude has an effect on job performance within organizations. In this study, company A regularly conducts meetings with its many employees, who express gratitude in various ways. To examine the ways in which these employees express gratitude and its effect on the meetings (e.g., attendance, engagement) we conducted interviews (n = 4) and questionnaires (n = 49). Results indicate that the frequency of participating in a meeting is positively associated with a disposition of gratitude. Furthermore, we used mediation analyses to test whether perspective-taking (i.e., viewing the situation from an alternative perspective) mediated the effect of a gratitude disposition and what effect it has on three job performances: task-based, contextual, and proactive performance. These results showed an indirect effect of gratitude on contextual and proactive performance through perspective-taking. This suggests that organizations should effectively manage the emotion of gratitude, especially in workplace environments that demand cooperation.

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In recent years, the "Private type MBO" has been noted in Japanese companies. "Private type MBO" means that the company exits from the stock market in order to realize the management of a long-term perspective and shift its fundamental Corporate Strategy. Also, amount of private type MBO has been increasing year by year, as can be seen in previous studies of MBO, which focus on how to influence stock prices and corporate values after MBO (DeAngelo et al, 1984; Kaplana, 1989; Wright et al, 2007); and on the problem of arbitrary profit adjusted by management (DeAngelo, 1986; Perry & Williams, 1994; Wu, 1997; Fisher and Louis, 2008; Tsukioka, 2011). This extensive literature that analyzes the overall trend of the economic effects of MBO, however, does not discuss the differences in MBO types. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the impact of the relationship between the management team and funds from the point of view of business content and outcome after MBO. As a result of the analysis, "Private type MBO" can be classified into three types. First, the “Performance-led type”, whose funds have strong influences, and puts emphasis on short-term profits, but its management does not take initiative on business. Second, the “Efficiency-led type”, which takes place when the management team is focused on medium- and long-term performance improvement, and on efficiency improvement of existing businesses. They have advantage over existing businesses, so they take initiative on business. Third, the “Innovation-led type”, which puts strength in the short-term perspective, creating a scenario where innovation activities may result in a decrease of the efficiency, while, by cooperative relationship based on the long-term perspective, management and fund build new strengths together.

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At both the individual and team level within a work group/organization, each unit (e.g. individual, team) could learn not only from their own experience, but also from the experiences of the others units. This study examined the effects of others’shared experiences in the first individual task trial on the team performance of the subsequent team task trials. An experiment with 48 female undergraduates (16 teams) revealed that in the first individual task trial, the performance of the ‘shared experience condition’ was higher than it was for the ‘no shared experience condition’. In the second and third team task trials, the effects of the shared experiences were not statistically significant. However, in the ‘no shared condition’, the third performance was higher than the second trial’s performances. Furthermore, the reflections on the experience after the third trial of the ‘no shared condition’ were higher than the reflections of those for the ‘shared condition’. These results showed that the effect of the shared experience positively and directly occurred during individual-level task trial. By contrast, the effect of no shared experience might had a positive and indirect effect on team performance through its influence on individual reflections on experience.

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The aim of this study is to investigate the invention performance (direct effect) and the organizational influx effects (indirect effect) of collaborative research between academia and pharmaceutical industry in Japan by conducting quantitative study with the dataset of patent applications and the directory service of researchers in Japanese universities. In the first part of this study, we evaluate the quality of patents (direct effect) arising from the collaborative research projects by using Japanese patent application data from 1976 to 2005. Since the pharmaceutical invention takes very long period to become a product, this study introduces four variables as phase-wise performance indicators of patent quality: (A) whether the patent covers a product or not, (B) whether the patent was registered or not, (C) the number of countries where the patent was filed, and (D) the number of forward citations by examiners. The result of the analysis shows no advantage of the IU invention (industry-university co-invention). What is more, the patent quality of IU inventions is significantly lower than that of the internal inventions in terms of (C) and (D). However, in some disease areas, IU inventions get better in quality than internal inventions. In the second part of this study, in order to understand the other aspect of IU inventions, we focused on the effect of information influx (indirect effect) from the collaborative researches by analyzing annual sums of forward citations from the internal inventions and those from IU inventions. The result shows the quality of internal inventions rapidly and transiently soar after the increase in quality of IU inventions. This suggests information and technology influx from universities encourage internal researches. These findings indicate that collaborative researches, although their direct effects seem to be low, play an important role in accelerating internal research.

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This research will examine the significance and challenge of inspiration creation from the perspectives of value creation, community, business, and production and management. In particular, the study will highlight actual examples of art to business. When art and business, and producing and management, are combined in two groups each, we get the four categories of arts production, arts management, business production, business management. Business production starts first of all from profit, whereas arts production starts from the creation of emotion and value. In any case, for the producer, the degree of fusion of art and business is important. The aim is the integration of producing from both the art and business directions. As a way of enabling arts production, we can consider interviewing artists and creators in their creative roles, in order to seek out the possibility of inherent producer and manager thinking in them, and to verify the relationships between creating things and creating ideas, and the starting point for the creation of emotion. The framework of arts production theory is organized and considered through interview surveys with artists and businessmen, etc. This study focused on the search for new combinations of art and business with regard to the creation of emotion, discussed arts production theory and verified practical examples. Firstly, the creation of sound, the significance of realism, the challenge of construction, and the creation of emotion though images were presented as examples that suggest the direction from art to business. Then, in a new collaboration between design and real estate, the QPMI cycle, as a method of the simultaneous design, production and innovation of space and business, and a value creation system that enables branding through the leveraging of the five senses, may be presented as an example of the integration of art and business. Meanwhile, the Bond Forged of a Thousand Tones Project is an example of community regeneration though art. The study and practical application of arts producing may be considered to be of value in the creating and resolving of challenges related to branding and value creation.

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The top managers of Japanese corporations have been questioned about their capability to take necessary actions in dealing with various difficulties the companies experienced since 1990’s. Some empirical studies analyzed the CEO successions of Japanese firms in the era and concluded that the impact of them to their business results was too small and invisible, and that the managers who can realize more sizable short-term changes and improvements in performance would be suitable for the recent period. This study discusses two theoretical types of top succession i.e. the change model and the baton pass model, taken from theoretical literatures in the past (Vancil, 1987; Kagono et al., 1983), and examines the current status of the Japanese corporations in 1990’s and 2000’s by asking which model is more widely adopted and leads to better performance. In order to verify those questions, three empirical studies were conducted. Firstly, the case analysis of the seven notable CEOs of the Japanese corporations in the era identified the traditional baton pass model as main process of the top successions. The division of roles among the planner tops and the implementer tops was found as critical in the relatively long-term oriented passing baton process, which sometimes brought about very impactful “continuous improvement” or “evolutionary change” (Sakano & Lewin, 1999). Secondly, variance components analysis as Crossland & Hambrick (2007) was conducted to the data of the 210 Japanese corporations from five industries. One of the results suggested the baton pass companies were more widely spread in the segment with better business performance. Thirdly, the results from the survey analysis of another data from 108 companies, including correlations, factor analyses and regressions showed the baton pass model of top succession was with wider adoption and better performance than the change model. The results from the three analyses strongly suggest careful reconsideration of the short-term oriented top management and governance models, and reevaluation of the traditional long-term model which are still proved to be effective in the recent era.

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Japanese electronics parts suppliers keep their competitive advantages. Platform leadership is effective for increasing competitiveness of supplier, for organizing advantageous industry structure to its own. However, in maturity stage, it is extremely difficult that supplier becomes a new platform leader and reorganizes the structure. We takes up a case of architectural reorganization in LCD industry by part supplier who twist a strategy of finished product manufacturer, and show importance piercing into customer’s Domain focus strategy.

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Christensen (1997) describes market share turnaround processes, based on intensive case studies of Hard Disk Drive, or HDD industry. Even though established large firms are vulnerable to disruptive innovations, previous models have not explained the underlying mechanism definitively. In this study, the author tries to construct some empirical hypotheses on consumer purchasing decisions through qualitative analysis on the Japanese digital still camera, or DSC market. Based on hedonic analysis of Point of Sales, or POS data from 1998 to 2006, the author discusses how consumer evaluate each performance attributes of DSCs.

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This article rethink the technological innovation especially the Replacement, from viewpoint of the Situated Approach and the Actor-network theory (ANT). Based on the understanding that so called 'technology' and 'social' are the example of hybrid actor network, the appearance of new technology is one of reassembling the hybrid actor-network. As a result, so called 'social' change is observed when technological change was observed because the 'social' is hybrid actor-network, too. Understanding innovation like this way, we will be able to get out of the popularly notions such as 'technology push or demand pull' or 'interaction of technology and social'. There is only reassembling process of hybrid actor-network and the novelty of 'technology' is constituted by mutual shaping of 'technology's. Based on this view, the Replacement of technology is considered as failure of the Differentiation, i.e., the Replacement is one of the Differentiation.

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Open (Government) Data is in the spotlight lately, attracts international attention especially because of its potential for economic growth. However, many prior research literatures deal with the macro economic impact of Open Data(and especially how opening up Public Sector Information), thus how Open Data can really bring economic growth to the country and how it specifically can be used in the for-profit context has not been closely scrutinized yet and still not clear. This research tries to fill this gap by analyzing micro-level data on the actual usage of Open Data obtained from the leading Open Data initiatives in the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. These datasets show in which area Open Data is most used and how many kind of Open Data datasets are used by a single user. This research finds there are notable differences in the usage pattern of Open Data among those three countries, and it implies that there are two main modes of the Open Data usage: visualization/curation and consulting. The latter tends to require more complex and liberal use of Open Datasets and has better potential for economic viability through the so-called “freemium” business model. As the Open Data policy and its acceptance grows in the country, the latter is occupying more prominent position in the arena of Open Data.

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Market creation is an effective way for a manufacturing firm to escape a commoditized market. A firm creates a new market by bringing a very different value proposition to its customers. However, the research has pointed out that it is difficult for an organization to legitimize its market-creating product development because the difference of the product’s value is never realized during the creation process. This study demonstrates a way of overcoming this problem during market-creating product development. We adopt the social shaping technology approach as a research framework and explore four new product development (NPD) cases: two market-creating products and two follower products. We observe the process of market-creating product development. First, an NPD team notices a new and different value proposition based on materials and structural factors that are inconsistent with the current value. Second, some people oppose the development because the product does not correspond to the current value. Third, a champion of the NPD team persuades the opponents using materials, structural factors, and a third party. This kind of process is not observed during follower product development. These findings suggest a significant difference between market-creating and follower product development: only in the former do an NPD team and its champion notice a new and different value proposition and legitimate it by persuading opponents.

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We examined whether entrepreneurs who actively expand their social networks achieve higher business growth, using a sample of entrepreneurs at the early stages of web related businesses in Tokyo. We also tested whether larger social networks mediated this relationship. Social networks were measured in terms of the number of acquaintances and business mentors. The former reflects the availability of support from a wide human network and the accessibility of information sources. The latter reflects access to direct support and advice from professionals. We confirmed that social competency and active networking were positively related to both indicators of social network. Moreover, these two indicators were marginally related to business growth, indicated by whether the company experienced a substantial increase in the number of employees.

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The number of families engaging in childcare and elderly care simultaneously is expected to rise, because there is a trend towards delayed marriage and child-bearing while the healthy life expectancy remains roughly stable. The questionnaire survey we conducted shows that there are people who are faced with all of the three activities of work, childcare, and elderly care. Those people often experience three-way conflict among those activities, which we call “WOP conflict,” because it involves work, the family of orientation, and the family of procreation. We conducted a series of interviews to identify the problems associated with people who are faced with all three activities. Some people who are faced with work, child care, and elderly care entrust one of the latter two to their spouses, and concentrate on balancing the remaining two activities. However, this can lead to strained human relations at work, in the family of orientation, or in the family of procreation. We argue understanding and cooperation from family members and colleagues help people who are faced with the WOP conflict. Close partnership with service providers including local governments also helps reduce burden on these people. For future work, we will continue to interview people who are faced with the three activities of work, childcare, and elderly care. We will also work towards identifying conditions that facilitate closer cooperation among the relevant entities including local governments.

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This paper examines community-level social capital, or community capital for short. Building on existing literature on social capital and supply chain networks, we specifically look at the community networks that evolved among the natives of China’s Wenzhou, often referred to as the birthplace of spontaneous Chinese capitalism. A key is to understand in depth whether and how individuals interact in local contingencies, to form a coherent pattern that may facilitate or inhibit further collective action. To what extent, moreover, is such pattern generation a product of community norms, values and strategies shared by community members? How does such pattern generation differ from other communities whose collective performance is less impressive? And why? This research directly addresses these issues with original evidence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, we investigate, at the community level, the emerging networking patterns of Chinese entrepreneurs from Wenzhou, whose striking economic success has been widely noted. In particular, we examine the extent to which Wenzhounese entrepreneurs’ rapid rewiring of their links with various transnational locales and the concomitant efficient network search and information sharing on the basis of community cohesiveness is related to Wenzhou’s success. We find “commensurate trust”shared and enjoyed among its exclusionary community members a key to decode the secrets of their success as well as to limit their evolvability.

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New business creation is a critical but difficult issue in agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries. This paper shows some successful cases about new business creation in fishermen’s communities, and examines the networking process and the structure of network both inside and outside of the communities by using the framework of social capital. Social Capital explains the importance of social connections and social relations in achieving goals. Social capital, or resources accessed through such connections and relations, is becoming more important element for the community. Burt (1992) proposed the idea called “structural holes” in social capital framework. The person who locates the connecting of the structural holes (a node or a bridge) would get the advantage or benefit compare with other members, because he/she will be more freedom and flexibly to reach outside resources through their weak ties. The subject of case studies is about three following fishermen’s communities. First case is a Sanriku fishery production Union located Okirai, Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. Second case is a young fishermen’s group in Yui, Shizuoka Prefecture. The third case is Ama-cho in Oki Island, Shimane Prefecture. As a result, there are some common features of three cases. Firstly, a new network has been built on both inside and outside of the community though new business creation. The particular feature of the network is diversity and heterogeneity. By using the network, they can introduce management resources such as new ideas, sales channels and human resources efficiently and effectively. On the other hand, there are different type of key persons existing on the three cases. The first case, a fish-sales man who work for the fishermen’s community has become a node (a bridge) of the network (the external human resources type). Second case, the leader of the young fishermen’s group has become a node (a bridge) of the network (the internal human resources type). The third case, a staff of the administrative organization becomes a node (a bridge) of the network (the government-led type).

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The purpose of this study is to consider the modern implication and interpretation of Japanese family businesses. Specifically, by considering the relationship between continuity and innovation of Japanese centennial firms from the perspective of entrepreneurial activity, this paper explores the dynamism that these firms have continued and survived for more than one century. For this purpose, we are subject to quantitative research and case analysis. And then the integrated discussions are made on the basis of three major findings. In the first, we find the family businesses outperformed non-family businesses during post war economy (1961-2000). Second, the comparative case study showed well-established companies constantly generated new values through well-balanced management of tradition and innovation. As its result, entrepreneurships have been inherited for long time. Finally, as typified by a case study, a family successor was, by its nature, caught in a dilemma between autonomy and constraints given by the predecessor generation, and he tried to resolve the dilemma in succession process. The case study showed this behavior of the successor was likely to be a source of innovative action in centennial family businesses.

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[in Japanese]

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