Akira Takeishi

Reasons for Innovation: Legitimizing Resource Mobilization for Innovation in the Case of Okochi Memorial Prize Winners

This paper addresses reasons for innovation. Innovation requires resources to transform new ideas into products/services to be sold in the market and diffused in society. Yet in the earlier stage of innovation process uncertainty always prevails both technologically and economically. There is no objective consensus that the new idea will succeed in the end. It is thus necessary for those people who want to realize the innovation to show others both inside and outside the firm legitimate reasons for mobilizing their precious resources, including people, materials, facilities, and money, throughout the process toward commercialization. How do firms legitimize the resource mobilization for innovation? Drawing on 18 case studies on Okochi Memorial Prize winners, which our joint research project has carried out over last five years, and building upon the existing literature on internal corporate venturing, new ventures, and other related issues, this paper examines the innovation process of established Japanese firms from idea generation to commercialization with a primary focus on the process by which resource mobilization was legitimized.

An International Comparison of Productivity and Product Development Performance in the Automobile Industry

In 1990, Japan’s automobile industry produced about 13 million vehicles domestically (including 9 million passenger cars), accounting for more than one-quarter of annual worldwide automobile production (about 50 million vehicles). Since the beginning of the 1980s, Japan has consistently ranked as the largest producer of automobiles in the world. By sales share, including locally produced vehicles, the Japanese industry holds almost 30 per cent of the US passenger car market, nearly 10 per cent of the entire EC market, and up to 30 per cent of the market in many of those European countries which have no domestic automobile production. This chapter examines issues related to the very competitiveness which has supported the development of Japan’s automobile industry, especially issues which have become important since 1980. Admittedly, competitiveness is a very diverse concept which includes many elements, among them price (and, related to that, cost and productivity), quality (including design quality, manufacturing quality and general product quality), lead-time, advertising, and distribution and retailing capabilities. Going into analysis of all of these is beyond the scope of this chapter. Instead, it will focus on just two important themes. First, it will examine the hypothesis that in terms of productivity indices, the gap between the US and Japanese automobile industries shrank during the 1980s, signalling a possible ‘reverse comeback’ by the US industry.

Boundaries of Innovation and Social Consensus Building: Challenges for Japanese Firms

This paper addresses challenges for Japanese firms in innovation, draw- ing on a framework to categorize innovation by its boundary and our understanding of organizational characteristics of Japanese corporate systems. Innovation can be categorized into four levels by its boundary, that is, the scope of changes to be involved. Four levels are of innovation within component, innovation between components (within product), innovation between products (within market), and innovation between markets (within institution). When the boundary of innovation is limited, necessary coordination could be made within a small group of people. Japanese firms are more likely to succeed in such innovations, since they have advantage in frontline-led consensus building based on long-term employment and inter-firm relations. Once the boundary of innovation exceeds such limited scope, particularly across two or more different markets, however, political reconciliation of different interests or charismatic leadership is necessary to build a consensus among heterogeneous social actors.