Yuichi Washida

Scanning and design thinking: organizational roles for innovation

Purpose n n n n nThe purpose of this paper is to first suggest scanning focal areas in new product development (NPD) by comparing with design thinking and, second, to uncover what people in different occupations expect of NPD based on future scenarios. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nAuthors place scanning and design thinking into a matrix of product-market strategies. In addition, this study adopts several open-end-type questionnaire surveys of employees at Japanese companies who have taken part in idea generation workshops that take a medium- to long-term perspective. n n n n nFindings n n n n nAuthors found that innovations generated through scanning can cover the most difficult and uncertain areas in practice compared with design thinking. This manuscript also reveals occupational categories can be divided into two groups according to different expectations of NPD: the rapid-fire NPD expectation group and late-bloomer NPD expectation group. The former group which consists of marketing and engineering experts tends to expect that NPD is simply a response to existing needs and that profit will be gained expeditiously through NPD, while the latter, which comprising design and research experts, tends to expect that NPD will realize future innovations. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThis study shows some common and different points between scanning and design thinking by using a theoretical framework of product-market strategies. Also, this study reveals who will lead innovation based on foresight in business.

A comparative study of a product planning experiment between Thailand and Japan: Why have specific innovations in emerging countries been realized?

In recent years, researchers have been focusing on innovations launched from emerging countries. Former studies have shown that these innovations rooted deeply in not only particular emerging countries markets needs but also their unique spirits. In order to reveal the differences and investigating the reasons of the “unique” spirits, a comparative experiment has been conducted between Thai and Japanese well-educated university students; after collecting ideas, engineers and marketers from a Japanese manufacture evaluate the ideas, and then the exceptional few ideas are selected in some group discussions by students. Through this experiment, some differences and characteristics in their product ideas and discussion styles were examined. First, differences have been discovered about the contents of product ideas; Thai students set a shorter new product development period, a durability period and proposed more altruistic product ideas than Japanese students. Second, differences have been found about attitudes towards the discussions; Thai students were less sensitive to the evaluations from knowledgeable authorities, were able to change their own ideas more flexibly and possess more self-confidence than Japanese students. This study implies the capability of taking high potential human resources in emerging countries for their unique innovations not generated by only high potential human resources in developed countries.

Application of DNA markers for discrimination between Japanese and Australian Wagyu beef

The objective of this study was to discriminate between original Japanese and Australian Wagyu beef, which is sold in the Singapore markets, using six previously developed DNA markers. To effectively evaluate the six markers for breed identification, the probability of identification as Australian Wagyu beef was calculated based on the estimated allele frequencies using 130 Australian Wagyu individuals. The combined use of six markers would allow the discrimination of Australian Wagyu beef with an estimated probability of 0.776. The probability to discriminate Australian Wagyu from Japanese Wagyu beef was sufficiently high. In addition, Australian Wagyu has maternal mitochondrial DNA of Bos indicus cattle with moderate high frequency of 0.377. The DNA marker system could also be used as a deterrent force against false sales, and contribute to the reduction and prevention of incorrect or falsified labeling of beef.

Comparative Analysis of Idea Generating Processes in Emerging and Developed Countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan

In recent years, researchers have focused on innovations launched from emerging countries. Although several cases of innovative products developed in emerging countries have been reported, there are few studies investigating differences in the idea generating process in emerging and developed countries. The main purpose of this study is to investigate those differences by adopting an exploratory approach pursued through a series of idea generation experiments. The experiments were conducted using as subjects graduate school students in two emerging countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, and one developed county, Japan. To simulate a realistic new product development process, the experiment consisted of three parts: the participants developing ideas, experts evaluating the ideas, and then participants analyzing the process over several group discussions so that the points may be discerned in the development process where there are differences between emerging countries and developed countries. Differences on both idea characteristics and selection criteria were found. First, the Indonesian and Malaysian participants proposed feasible ideas having lower investment risk than did Japanese participants. Second, the participants from the two emerging countries selected ideas with greater confidence than did the Japanese participants. Third, the former groups made decisions on their ideas without referring to experts evaluations in contrast to the latter group.

A qualitative research on the difference of expectation to NPD related to two occupational categories in Japanese enterprises

Although it has been said that conceiving potential needs and customers is important for realizing innovations, companies have had difficulty in getting through new product development (NPD) looking toward the prospective demand because of high risk. Former studies have shown that there are differences of NPD strategies employed by companies depending on whether one aims NPD for potential needs or not. This study focuses not on the differences of NPD strategies in companies but on what each occupation expects for NPD. Several open-end-type questionnaire surveys on employees from Japanese companies who have experienced medium to long term perspective idea generating workshops have revealed that occupational categories can be divided into two groups by the differences of expectation to NPD; rapid-fire NPD expectation group and late bloomer NPD expectation group. The former group which consists of marketing experts and engineering experts, tends to expect just responding to existing needs and gaining profit expeditiously in NPD, and the latter that comprises of design experts and research experts, tends to expect realizing future innovations in NPD. This study implies the confrontation with two occupation groups prevent Japanese enterprises from realizing future innovations.

Managing Foreign Subsidiaries in Emerging Countries: Are They Different from Western Subsidiaries?

This paper contributes to the literature on management of foreign subsidiaries and inter-organizational relationships. Especially, this paper focuses on the problem of managing foreign subsidiaries in multinational corporations (MNCs). With the recent development of emerging markets, the importance of managing foreign subsidiaries is increasing for many multinational corporations (MNCs). The characteristics of these markets differ significantly from those of developed countries such as North America and Europe.

Are geeks driving out the fashion industry

More consumers have been shifting from mass media to network media such as the Internet. There has been a significant movement towards being engrossed in games or the Internet among people in their teens and 20s. The main target of the fashion industry has been teenagers. Geeks who are absorbed in games or the Internet tend to avoid social interaction in real life, and so they might be not interested in appearance and fashion. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in 2012 to examine the features of geeks and fashionistas. This paper discusses whether the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) generation who live in a virtual society can be destroying a basic and essential role of fashion, as a means of expressing ones social identity. For geeks who have learned different rules of communication, there is no need for them to spend time or money on fashion. There is a possibility that the more developed ICT Networks become, the less relevant the fashion industry will be.

DO FOREIGN CREATIVE INDUSTRY PRODUCTS CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROMOTION OF PRODUCTS IMPORTED FROM THE SAME COUNTRY? : CASE OF JAPANESE AND KOREAN PRODUCTS IN EMERGING ECONOMIES

The purpose of this study is to consider what influence creative content industry imports in emerging countries have on the formation of images of the country of origin. Japanese animation and games, as well as Korean pop music and movies are highly welcomed in many countries (Douglas 2002), especially in the emerging countries of Asia. Seeing such global successes, the Japanese government has adopted the Cool Japan policies promoting Japanese creative industry products, ranging from comics, fashion, music, animation and games to characters. Creative industry products, such as Hollywood movies, are also popular in many countries (Craig et al. 2005). Globalization of creative industry products has been a popular topic for many scholars in different disciplines, including cultural anthropology (e.g., Allison, 2006), sociology (e.g., Dowd and Janssen 2011), cultural studies (e.g., Lash and Lury, 2007), and cultural policy (e.g., Crane, Kawashima, and Kawasaki, 2002). However, although global marketing has been an important theme in the discipline for years (e.g., Zou and Cavusgil 2002), the globalization of creative industries has not received enough attention from marketing scholars with a few exceptions (e.g., Matsui, 2009). The reason marketing scholars have not had much interest in creative industries is that the synergy with other manufacturing or service industries has been unknown. Due to the same reason, “Cool Japan” and “Korean Boom” are not directly designed to promote emerging countries manufactured goods/services. Has there been empirical improvement in the brand image of Japanese or Korean automobiles and digital devices in countries where Japanese animation or Korean pop music is pervasive? We used data from Hakuhodo Global Habit 2013 to verify this hypothesis. It is a series of consumer surveys conducted by Hakuhodo Inc., the second largest advertising agency in Japan. It is one of the largest global consumer survey databases conducted yearly in Japan, and includes consumer surveys from 36 major cities worldwide. In each city, approximately 800 participants are randomly selected and asked about 900 questions regarding their product purchases and preferences, product ownership, daily activity, media usage, hobbies, value systems, and demographic profile. Respondents are in the upper or middle-class segments of each country. Due to its large sample size and stable survey procedures, we consider Hakuhodo Global Habit 2013 reliable enough for academic statistical analyses. From the database, the consumers preference ratio for four types of creative content including animation, manga, music, television dramas, and movies of foreign origins were used in ascertaining the degree to which creative industry products were received in thirteen emerging countries’ cities: Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei, Delhi/Mumbai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Yangon, Ho-chi-minh city, Manila, Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou, and Moscow. The originating countries are Japan and Korea. Respondents were chosen using stratified sampling by gender and age. They were asked to choose countries from which they preferred content (multiple answers allowed). They were also asked about Japan and Korea, and whether or not there was an image of either as a production area for any of 14 types of manufactured goods and services (consumer electronics, digital devices, automobiles, fashion, luxury goods, furniture, animation, tourism, sports, movies, music, food products, medical products, and cosmetics) (multiple responses). For both Japan and Korea, we analysed partial correlations between the degree of reception of four types of creative content in 13 cities and the image of the production area for 14 types of products. Also, we analysed simple correlations among the degrees to which four types of creative content were received. The following three findings were revealed from the results. The overall trends were the same for both Japan and Korea. Finding 1: Reception of animation and manga does not contribute to an improvement in the image of other manufactured products or services. A positive correlation with the reception of animation and manga was found only for the image of the production area for animation, and the correlation was, for the most part, negative concerning the image of the area in the production of the other 13 types of manufactured goods or services. Finding 2: Reception of movies, music, and television dramas contributes to improvement in the image of other manufactured products or services. The other three types of creative content correlate positively with the image of the production area for a variety of manufactured goods and services. In particular, movies had a positive correlation with images for automobiles, furniture, medical products and other types in both Japan and Korea. With regard to television dramas and music, content produced in Japan had a higher positive correlation with the images of other manufactured goods and services than that produced in Korea. Finding 3: Reception of the four types of creative content correlate highly with each other. Consumers receiving Japanese animation were significantly more prone to also receive other Japanese creative content. The same trend was also seen in the results for Korea. The following conclusions were obtained from these findings. The export of Korean movies, television dramas and pop music, which is creative content of the so-called “Korean boom,” is inferred to contribute to branding of Korean digital devices and automobiles. However, we inferred that simply exporting Japanese animation, does not contribute to the branding of Japanese manufactured goods or services. This divergence is inferred to be in the essence of the difference in the current marketing efficiency between the “Cool Japan” strategy and “Korean boom.” On the other hand, we expect that exporting Japanese animation has the influence of increasing reception of Japanese movies, television dramas and pop music, and, moreover, the receipt of Japanese movies, television dramas, and pop music can be expected to contribute to the branding of Japanese manufactured goods and services. In other words, we concluded that exports of Japanese animation indirectly have a favourable effect on marketing activities for Japanese manufactured goods and services. In practice, because of copyright issues, Japanese movies, television dramas and pop music are not able to be as actively exported as Korean movies, television dramas and pop music are. Nevertheless, the influence of Japanese movies, television dramas, and pop music per se is considered to be the same as for those produced in Korea. We inferred that to be the case because the reception of Japanese animation and manga (including pirated versions) underpins such influence. This study used a large amount of quantitative data, and empirically verified the significance in marketing “Cool Japan” and the “Korean boom.” The initial hypothesis was supportive of movies, television dramas and music, but negative for animation. However, it was suggested that although the “Korean Boom” and “Cool Japan” appear to be similar strategies, they have major structural differences.