Management Of Technology And Innovation In Japan

What Makes this Book Unique? No crystal ball is required to safely predict, that in the future – even more than in the past – mastered innovativeness will be a primary criterion distinguishing s- cessful from unsuccessful companies. At the latest since Michael Porter’s study on the competitiveness of nations, the same criterion holds even for the evaluation of entire countries and national economies. Despite the innumerable number of p- lications and recommendations on innovation, competitive innovativeness is still a rare competency. The latest publication of UNICE – the European Industry - ganization representing 20 million large, midsize and small companies – speaks a clear language: Europe qualifies to roughly 60% (70%) of the innovation strength of the US (Japan). The record unemployment in many EU countries does not c- tradict this message. A main reason may be given by the fact that becoming an innovative organi- tion means increased openness towards the new and more tolerance towards risks and failures, both challenging the inherently difficult management art of cultural change. Further, lacking innovativeness is often related to legal and fiscal barriers which rather hinder than foster innovative activities. Yet another reason to explain Europe’s notorious innovation gap refers to insufficient financial R&D resources on the company as well as on the national level. As a result, for example, hi- ranking decisions on the level of the European Commission are taken to increase R&D expenditures in the European Union from roughly 2% to 3% of GNP.

How did Japan fall from challenger to US hegemonic leadership in the high tech industries in the 1980s, to stumbling giant by the turn of the century? What is it doing about it? This book examines the challenges faced by Japan's high tech companies through successful emulation of some of their key practices by foreign competitors and the emergence of new competitive models linked to open innovation and modular production. High tech companies were slow to respond, relying at first on formulae which had worked in the past, but in a new environment, some of these traditional strengths had now become sources of weakness. Stability and success, moreover, had decreased their appetite for risk. Early in the new century, however, there were signs of a more concerted response, which opened up past practices to scrutiny, and modification through selective learning and adaptation of the new models. The 'MOT' (management of technology) movement provided a vehicle for this change. It was linked, in turn, to efforts to change the national innovation system, giving universities a more central role, and encouraging spin-offs and startups. The book features contributions from Japanese and Western scholars and practitioners who have distinctive insights into the nature of these challenges and responses, with substantial introductory and concluding chapters. The result is a highly accessible account of innovation, technology, and change management in the world's second largest economy.

Engineered in Japan presents a unique and comprehensive examination of technology management in the most successful Japanese companies: unique in that all chapters go beyond superficial descriptions of stylized practices to look in depth at particular issues, often contradicting or qualifying the conventional wisdom; comprehensive in that it covers the entire technology life cycle from basic R&D, to development engineering, to manufacturing processes, to learning from the Japanese. Each chapter is based on original research by noted scholars in the field, and identifies technology management practices that have become a major source of competitive advantage for highly successful Japanese companies. Engineered in Japan documents the best practices from such companies as Toyota, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Nippondenso, and discusses how these technology management practices can be usefully adopted in other cultural contexts. Going beyond past observations, the authors all delve below the surface of Japanese management approaches. They look more closely than has been done before at how particular methods are applied, and they identify some new practices that have not yet been highlighted in books on Japanese methods. Presenting recent data that contradict some conventional thinking about U.S.-Japanese differences, they look at old techniques from a new perspective. "U.S. managers can perhaps learn more from the process of creation in Japan and the organizational structures that support innovation," say the editors in their introduction, "than from the particular approaches, tools, and technologies created." A running theme throughout the book is that Japanese managers and engineers tend to think in terms of systems, focusing not just on the parts but on the connections between them. Engineered in Japan is must reading for technology managers and engineers, along with anyone interested in Japanese business, engineering, and management.

This book assesses the achievements of the software engineering discipline as represented by IT vendors in Japan in order to deepen understanding of the mechanisms of how software engineering capabilities relate to IT vendors’ business performance and business environment from the perspective of innovation and engineering management. Based on the concepts of service science and science for society, the volume suggests how to improve the sophistication of services between the demand side, i.e., IT user companies, and the supply side, i.e., IT vendors, simultaneously. The author and his colleagues developed a structural model including innovational paths, such as service innovation, product innovation and process innovation, and a measurement model including the seven software engineering capabilities: deliverables, project management, quality assurance, process improvement, research and development, human resource development and customer contact. Then they designed research on software engineering excellence and administered it with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and Information-Technology Promotion Agency. Through statistical analyses of the results, they found that human resource development and R&D are significant fundamental conditions to improve the quality of the deliverables and that IT firms with high levels of deliverables, derived from high levels of human resource development, quality assurance, project management and process improvement, tend to sustain high profitability. In addition, they developed a measurement model based on Porter’s five forces and Barney’s resource-based view. A regression tree analysis suggested that manufacturer spin-off vendors tend to expand business with well-resourced R&D, whereas user spin-off vendors tend to depend heavily on parent company demand.

This book demonstrates that long-awaited changes to technology policy and corporate strategy are now taking place in Japan. The study also questions whether it is the programme of reform or the will and ability to implement these reforms which is new. Contributors explore the repositioning of the Japanese science and technology system on three levels: * institutional structure and technology policy * organizational and managerial changes and business-government relations * developments in key technology sectors

This book summarizes highlights of the investigation of “An Elucidation of the Role of Institutional Systems in Characterizing Technology Development Trajectories – A Global Comparative Analysis of Manufacturing Technology and Information Te- nology in the Enhancement of Business Practice” supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scienti?c Research (S) by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology/Japan Society for Science Policy over the period 2002–2006. Background and objectives of the investigation are summarized as follows: (a) Japan ranks far below the level of the USA with respect to the development and utilization of information technology (IT) in the information society that emerged in the 1990s. (b) This can be attributed toa vicious cycle between Japan’s non-elastic institutions, insuf?cient utilization of the potential bene?ts of IT, and economic stagnation. (c) The source of such a vicious cycle can be derived from the fundamental d- ferences of the characterizing process of technology between manufacturing technology (MT) and IT during their diffusion processes. This investigation - tempted to elucidate this mechanism. Noteworthy ?ndings obtained include: (a) MT has been developed largely by the supply side and its functionality is - tablished during the stage of its supply to the market. In contrast, IT is strongly driven by the demand side and its functionality is created through diffusion in a self-propagating way. This contrast can be clearly observed in the dramatic advancement of Japan’s mobile phone industry in the late 1990s.