Successful innovators and entrepreneurs in Japan have prospered, despite the recessionary 1990s. This book analyzes strategies used by firms, local governments and communities in Japan through case study analysis of 50 high technology manufacturers in Kyoto , Osaka and Tokyo (with reference to bio tech clusters in the American Midwest). These strategies are most effective because (and sometimes despite) of firms’ embeddedness within various local and regional institutions.
Works that emphasize the central state and/or large conglomerate (keiretsu) groups cannot explain the persistence of either ground-level innovation or entrepreneurship in Japan . In contrast, this book explores the struggles of entrepreneurs and civic-minded local leaders in fostering innovative activity. I examine the Kyoto Model of Entrepreneurship and compare it to innovative communities elsewhere.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Japan is intended for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in political economy, government-business relations, political science, business, economics, and sociology. The argument – that certain political and strategic firm-driven interplays between enterprise embeddedness in local communities and national level institutions have important effects on innovation and competition – should be of interest to comparativists interested in Japan as well as Japan specialists. The book also appeals to readers interested in global competition and entrepreneurialism in high technology enterprises. The book provides a template for harnessing the local (socio-political) conditions supporting firm-level innovation and start-up potential.
This book is based on extensive qualitative and quantitative case study analysis in Japan of three innovative clusters of high technology manufactures in three regions (Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka), conducted from 1996 to1999 while a Fulbright Doctoral Fellow (http://www.iie.org) and in 2002 as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Post-Doctoral Fellow at Tokyo University (http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-fellow/postdoctoral.html). I conducted follow-up survey and interview research in 2002 and 2003 - building on the original dissertation research completed in 1999 - among the presidents of 43 high technology small and medium size enterprises and local, regional and central government officials in Japan, thanks to a travel grant from the University Research Council at DePaul University (http://condor.depaul.edu/~acafflpc/urc.htm).
