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This analysis assesses the barriers to innovation Japanese executives must contend with and outlines key strategies to help their organizations, and all companies that seek to compete in global marketplaces, assume a leadership role in implementing a business ecosystem strategy.

To better understand the economic and management challenges Japan’s business leaders face and how they are addressing them, the IBM Institute for Business Value in collaboration with Oxford Economics conducted a survey of 1,151 Japanese executives across 17 industries.

While the strategy of opening up innovation processes to customers, partners and other stakeholders has been adopted successfully in many nations, Japanese organizations appear stuck in closed, insular innovation paradigms

Japanese organizations need to embrace entirely new customer value propositions, build new partnering arrangements and more effectively harness the power of innovation by taking four key sets of actions that: Re-imagine customer experience; Redefine business ecosystems; Promote ecosystem connectivity; Revitalize innovation governance.

A bold analysis of why Japanese business leaders largely ignore new forms of competition emanating from startups or emergent cross-industry players, even as traditional industries such as banking now anticipate massive technology-fueled disruption and how they can change.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight challenges to the transfer of technologies which are caused by the internationalization of companies and the need to outsource production in a globalized business environment. Aside from typical methods of transfer by means of documents or equipment, technology is mainly brought forward by human resources, which in a transboundary context implies the interaction between cultures. However, a connection between culture and technology has, for a long time, been underestimated by practitioners and researchers and a fortiori necessitates the development of competences to facilitate collaboration in a more and more multicultural working environment.

Data were retrieved from a semi‐structured questionnaire used in ten in‐depth interviews and exploited by discourse analysis. The survey questionnaire was the main instrument to support data collection in the interviews with at least one respective executive involved in cross‐border technology transfer in the Japanese sample companies.

Contradicting the assumptions in Western literature, this study reveals that not only countries correlating on collectivism and masculinity but also more feminine countries can be considered as successful technology transfer partners. It is also substantiated that cultural closeness between countries does not imperatively result in frictionless technology transfer when analyzed from a cultural point of view.

Survey results from a small‐sized exploratory study on Japanese companies and their experience in technology transfer processes within Asia provide information that will help managers to better understand the challenges in cross‐cultural transfer situations and to create a more effective transfer framework.

This paper focuses on the combination of technology transfer processes and the need for cross‐cultural competence and hence fulfils an identified need to link technology transfer to culture.

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast manufacturing strategies and practices, and its impact on business performance between Korean and Japanese firms in the electronics industry. It is based on the premise that: (1) manufacturing strategies and practices differ significantly between these two countries; and (2) these differences significantly impact firm's manufacturing operations and business performance. The focus of the study is to explore the differences that may exist between Japanese and Korean firms in manufacturing strategies and business practices by analyzing survey results of electronics firms from both countries. Differences between Japanese and Korean firms are investigated in several respects.

The primary goal of this study is to conduct an empirical comparison of corporate social orientation (CSO) values held by US and Japanese students. The study also aims to test the stability of CSO with an exploratory assessment of the impact of international exposure on these values.

A total of 806 respondents were surveyed in the USA and Japan regarding their expectations of business organizations, their demographic attributes, and their level of international exposure. The survey results were compared using descriptive statistics, MANOVA and ANOVA.

The results support the assertion that CSO varies across individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Statistically significant differences were found between US and Japanese respondents in the relative ratings allocated to the four dimensions of CSO (economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations). Results also indicate that CSO is a fairly stable set of values. International exposure was not found to have a statistically significant impact on CSO ratings.

This study offers support for the variability of CSO across students in different cultures. It also suggests that further studies are needed to fully assess the impact of people's experiences on their CSO. Based on the differences identified, managers in these settings can expect to have their performance evaluated differently by customers, investors, regulators, and other groups.

This study presents the first comparison of CSOs between the USA and Japan. The study also presents a preliminary test of the relationship between people's international exposure and CSO.

While much prior research has focused on Japanese multi‐national corporations’ (MNCs) marketing strategies, little is known about the factors that influence Japanese MNCs’ foreign market entry mode choice. In this study, a survey of Japanese MNCs is conducted in order to assess the factors that are the most influential in the foreign market entry decisions of Japanese MNCs. Using bargaining power theory, eight factors are identified in the study. The findings indicate that five of the eight factors (stake of the host country, need for local contribution, riskiness of the host country, resource commitment, and host government restrictions) are significant predictors of Japanese MNCs’ entry mode choice and that bargaining power theory is of value in predicting the entry mode choices of Japanese MNCs.

In the last 30 years, Japan has come from a second‐rate status to the world′s economic giant, leading the world in electronics, automobiles, steel, shipbuilding and virtually anything else to which she has set her mind. The Japanese aim was and still is to be world‐class suppliers of the major high volume items in the largest international markets. This focus on middle‐ to lower‐end volume markets made increased efficiency essential. The mentality of jimae shugi – Japan should be virtually self‐sufficient in all important product areas – is as strong as ever. How did the Japanese become such superb marketers? What is their international marketing strategy? Examines the Japanese international marketing strategy from its evolution; and analyses its strengths and weaknesses in allowing Western corporations to be able to compete more effectively against it.

As the Japanese have catapulted themselves to become a supereconomic power, many reasons have been given regarding their rapid progression – one of which is the claim that they are the world′s premier marketers. Certainly US marketers would argue this point. However, the unparalleled rise of Japanese auto manufacturers provides support for this thesis. What is the actual role of marketing in a Japanese corporation? How well are the Japanese versed in the development and implementation of marketing strategy? Is there really a difference between marketing practices used in the West and those implemented in Japan? Addresses these questions.

This study contributes to the construction of a theory on humanistic leadership in the context of Japanese culture. Although the Japanese management system has been described as human-oriented, there has been limited research on this subject, especially regarding top leaders. This case study focuses on Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic), who devoted his life as a businessperson to investigating human nature. The authors examined how the humanistic approach influenced his beliefs and behaviors, as well as his company's performance. The authors then show how current employees at Panasonic have implemented and interpreted his philosophy.

This research is a qualitative case study. Data were gathered from transcriptions of archived recordings, interviews and Internet documents. They were then coded for analyses.

The findings show how humanistic leadership can succeed via seven behaviors: building a company philosophy aimed at the prosperity of society and the well-being of people, being aware of one's own weaknesses, listening to others, improving oneself, developing people, respecting people and making a profit for society.

The study identifies the behavioral aspects of humanistic leadership for building a leadership theory and provides insight into how Matsushita's leadership characteristics and behaviors are connected to Japanese cultural values.

ON THE AOYAMA‐DORI, an avenue in central Tokyo running from the Imperial Palace into the Shibuya district, is a building envied by all countries trying to increase exports to Japan. And, incredibly, it's British.

Understanding cultural differences is critical to international business success. Hofstede's (1980) model of national culture is widely used to identify such differences. The cultural dimensions identified in Hofstede's model, however, are not gender‐specific, with one exception, masculinity/femininity. Hofstede's data were gathered in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Considerable change has taken place since that time, particularly in the areas of education, legislation, and workforce composition. It is proposed that these changes, among others, may have resulted in gender differences in dimensions of national culture. This study provides an exploratory examination of gender differences in cultural characteristics in two industrialised countries with distinctly different cultures, Japan and the USA. Results indicate that gender differences exist in the power distance dimension for Japan and in the individualism/collectivism dimension for Japan and the USA. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.