著者

Qiwei Liu Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, no.2, pp.63-78, 2021-04-15 (Released:2021-04-15)

参考文献数

33

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The survey of Chinese employees working for Japanese companies and graduating from universities in China revealed that factors such as intercultural gap, Japanese ability, and workplace human relations have limited correlation with the 4-faceted motivation scores. The existence of career perspectives did however appear to relate to motivation scores including learning. The reason for low motivation scores of Chinese employees derived from the fact that they had limited opportunities for participating in job fairs during their job search, or communicating with senior employees. Due to the absence of a career perspective, employees were dissatisfied with their day-to-day work after joining the companies.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, no.6, pp.263-276, 2019-12-15 (Released:2019-12-15)

参考文献数

13

---

Japan’s prewar railroad business (Ministry of Transport) was transferred to a public corporation, Japanese National Railways (JNR), after World War II and eventually went bankrupt. This was due to a number of factors, including the decline in the position of railroads, ballooning personnel costs, and the existence of unprofitable local lines. However, the issue that directly caused the crash was the failure of the financing scheme that formed part of the company’s third long-term plan, which commenced in FY 1965. The company had not taken government subsidies or increased its borrowings from the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP), but instead went outside the FILP and issued large volumes of high-interest rate tokubetsu (special) bonds without a government guarantee, so that by FY 1967, interest and debt-related expenses totaled 101.2 billion yen, or about the same as the 104 billion yen raised by tokubetsu bonds. In other words, tokubetsu bonds were being issued to finance the payment of interest on railway bonds. As a result, the company went bankrupt in the first few years of its seven-year plan, which changed into a financial rehabilitation plan starting in FY 1969.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, no.2, pp.15-29, 2022-04-15 (Released:2022-04-15)

参考文献数

10

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The number of gas stations (GS) in Japan has halved in the last quarter-century, as price competition has made selling gasoline unprofitable. Further, the Japanese government has formulated a policy to end the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035. Under these circumstances, Yamahiro, a GS company, (A) according to non-oil services, divided its GSs into three groups, namely, car inspection/testing, car washing/coating, and car rental, and further increased the specialization of each station by focusing on the services it offers; (B) not reduced the number of employees at the station despite operating self-service GSs and introduced the vehicle identification system and vehicle information management system to improve the profitability of its non-oil services by linking these systems; (C) utilized the vehicle data to create synergies between the car-rental business and used car sales business; and (D) increased the number of GSs by taking over unprofitable stations from wholesale dealers of oil products and retraining their entire workforces. As a result, the company expanded its business in Tokyo area, presently earning 40% of its profits from non-oil services, and won the Japan Quality Award (JQA).

著者

Kenichi Kuwashima Nobuyuki Inamizu Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0200621a, (Released:2020-08-03)

参考文献数

42

被引用文献数

5

---

The concept of ambidexterity and particularly the concept of exploitation are ambiguous. March (1991), a study that became the theoretical basis for several research studies, asserted that exploitation has a trade-off relationship with exploration including innovation, and on the basis of this aspect, Levinthal and March (1993) proposed the myopia of learning. Nevertheless, Levinthal later modeled exploitation that can be called as innovation. Some argued that exploration and exploitation are bipolar on one axis, and some argued that they are two orthogonal axes. In this study, we proposed using Lévi-Strauss’ “bricolage” instead of “exploitation.” This bricolage is a concept of making do with the tools and materials at hand (performing innovation), and bricolage and exploration are used together with ambidexterity being the normal form. We examine this aspect by using Japan’s response to the current Coronavirus disease pandemic as an example.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0200227a, (Released:2020-04-04)

参考文献数

67

被引用文献数

3

---

Since the 1990s, simulation and organizational studies have been conducted in Japan. In this paper, we review the simulation and organizational studies in Japan, including the relationships between researchers. The global trend is to cite the results of simulation studies as metaphors. By contrast, in Japan, there are unique research groups which critically examine the existing models, perform simulations, and further test them against survey data. The lessons they learned are: (a) The animation of the simulation results stir the imagination of researchers and business persons. However, (b) if the phenomena indicated by simulation and the reality of parameter values are not supported by the survey data, the implications derived from simulation are no more than a delusion.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0191117a, (Released:2019-12-13)

参考文献数

13

---

Japan’s prewar railroad business (Ministry of Transport) was transferred to a public corporation, Japanese National Railways (JNR), after World War II and eventually went bankrupt. This was due to a number of factors, including the decline in the position of railroads, ballooning personnel costs, and the existence of unprofitable local lines. However, the issue that directly caused the crash was the failure of the financing scheme that formed part of the company’s third long-term plan, which commenced in FY 1965. The company had not taken government subsidies or increased its borrowings from the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP), but instead went outside the FILP and issued large volumes of high-interest rate tokubetsu (special) bonds without a government guarantee, so that by FY 1967, interest and debt-related expenses totaled 101.2 billion yen, or about the same as the 104 billion yen raised by tokubetsu bonds. In other words, tokubetsu bonds were being issued to finance the payment of interest on railway bonds. As a result, the company went bankrupt in the first few years of its seven-year plan, which changed into a financial rehabilitation plan starting in FY 1969.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0190422a, (Released:2019-05-23)

参考文献数

11

被引用文献数

1

---

The notion that you are free to do what you want with your property is extremely childish and immature, regardless of whether the property in question is an animal, a physical object, or a company. An owner has responsibilities, and even owner-managers are not free to do whatever they want with their companies. Doing so would be treating the company like one’s personal property and such acts are punishable by law. In conclusion, it is crucial to understand that owners have responsibilities as long as they call themselves owners.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0181119a, (Released:2018-12-12)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

3

---

In a cross-sectional survey of seven companies, Takahashi (1996b) discovered a U-shaped curve, with (a) newly hired employees and long-time employees tending to have a high perspective index, and with (b) those with 5–10 years of service tending to be at the bottom of the index. This paper is an examination of Company X, using 12 years of exhaustive survey data. We found that (a) for data in all years, the trend was represented by a similar U-shaped curve, with recent hires and long-time employees being high on the perspective index, and with (b) those at the bottom of the perspective index having shifted over time. This points to the existence of a generation that holds a relatively low perspective index regardless of their number of years of service with the company. This phenomenon seems to develop as the number of years of service increases.

著者

Nobuo Takahashi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.17, no.3, pp.109-121, 2018-06-15 (Released:2018-06-15)

参考文献数

20

被引用文献数

5

---

What can be done to improve future parameters? Company X is a large firm with 1,300 full-time employees and 35 branches throughout Japan. Data collected from questionnaires showed that as the president of the company made site visits to the company’s branches, which created opportunities for dialog with employees, these efforts led to greater expectations for the future and improved those branches’ future parameters vis-à-vis branches that were not visited. This study found that this impact was even greater as employees’ attendance at social gatherings involving employees following these conversations was more than 80%. However, this impact disappeared when the company got a new president and this practice was discontinued. In other words, future parameters are not constants; hence, maintaining them requires constant attention.

著者

Ryusuke KOSUGE Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.15, no.6, pp.273-284, 2016-12-15 (Released:2016-12-15)

参考文献数

19

被引用文献数

2 6

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Observations of a Japanese automobile dealer company shifting from a selling orientation to a market orientation revealed the following: (1) A market-oriented program with a process and team orientation threatened the self-concept of the sales force and was rejected by most of them; (2) when three out of 54 shops, or only approximately 5%, appeared to be developing a form of market orientation, the top management selected managers of those three shops as well as changed the existing evaluation and reward system, which caused market orientation to take precedence in the organization. It should be noted that what happened at this company was contrary to natural selection or competitive isomorphism. At first, these three shops performed so poorly that they could well have been “selected out.” However, the top management allowed the three shops to survive and, when the time was ripe, deliberately made an effort to spread the form of market orientation within the organization. In essence, it is suggested that the key mechanism of developing a market orientation is institutional isomorphism through artificial selection.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.15, no.1, pp.15-27, 2016-02-15 (Released:2016-02-15)

参考文献数

24

被引用文献数

2 7

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This study reconfigures part one of Thompson (1967) as a theoretical restatement of Chandler's (1962) historical evidence. When organizations grow, their growth orientations and strategies emerge from their technical rationality, according to Thompson's first criteria of technology instrumentality. Regarding instrumentally reasonable/rational organizations, according to his second criteria of economy, organizational structures such as horizontal departmentalization, vertical hierarchies, and multidivisional forms become necessary to minimize coordination costs. In other words, when discussing growth strategies and multidivisional forms, Chandler claimed that “structure follows strategy,” but Thompson rightfully claimed that “strategy and structure follow technology.”

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, no.5, pp.261-278, 2015-10-15 (Released:2015-10-15)

参考文献数

32

被引用文献数

1 4

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Takahashi (2004) advocates the Japanese-style seniority-based system, particularly the idea of “new work in reward for work,” which is termed as the Work–Work Theory. This paper highlights the characteristics of the Work–Work Theory system in comparison with the idea of “pay in reward for work,” which is termed as the Work–Pay Theory. According to the Work–Work Theory system (i) differentiation of work accelerates differences in promotions and pay; (ii) as workers are dissatisfied with their current work situations, they may want to change their work situations by coming up with new and better ways of doing things, that is, challenging the status quo; (iii) supervisors select the right personnel for a job; (iv) implement regular changes in personnel to reward workers with their new work; (v) working together enables the company to grow; and (vi) under the Work–Work Theory, work assignments that gradually become more challenging provide intrinsic motivation, which becomes exciting (waku-waku in Japanese). If it is not exciting, it cannot be called intrinsic motivation. Thus, the Work–Work Theory drastically changes the motivational approaches derived from the self-determination theory to the honest practice of intrinsic motivation.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, no.3, pp.127-135, 2015-06-15 (Released:2015-06-15)

参考文献数

25

被引用文献数

7 7

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The strategic theory of resource-based view (RBV) put Penrose (1959) in the spotlight. The key to understanding Penrose's assertion is the concept of economies of growth independent of economies of size. According to Penrose, even when economies of size are not working, economies of growth exist regardless of size. Further, the economies of growth are temporary in nature and disappear once expansion is completed. In which managerial services are the economies of growth embodied? This paper hypothesizes that the economies of growth occur where there are unused start-up expert managerial services. Regardless of size, where these services exist, paving the company's way by step-by-step growth should produce profits.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, no.2, pp.67-82, 2015-04-15 (Released:2015-04-15)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

3 9

---

“Bounded rationality” has become such a key concept that the mere mention of the name “Simon” calls this phrase to mind. Nonetheless, this phrase does not appear in the original text of Administrative Behavior (Simon, 1947, 1957, 1976, 1997). In spite of this, the index of the third edition (Simon, 1976), published two years before Simon received the Nobel Prize in Economics, includes the subheading “Bounded Rationality” in three locations under the heading “Rationality.” This paper combines the writings contained in these three locations into three characteristics: (I) That is bounded by the constraints of individual rationality; (II) That makes it impossible to know all alternative behaviors and their consequences and maximize the given values as assumed in game theory; and (III) The organization provides that with a decision-making environment in which behavior that is rational from the standpoint of the given environment is also rational from the standpoint of the group. In the third edition, Simon essentially called that “bounded rationality” and drew a sharp distinction from game theory. However, the concept embodied in that is Barnard's “restricted but important capacity of choice.”

著者

Yuki MITOMI Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, no.1, pp.35-51, 2015-02-15 (Released:2015-02-15)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

2 4

---

The mutual learning model described in “Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning” (March, 1991) concludes that “slow learning on the part of individuals maintains diversity longer, thereby providing the exploration,” based on the results of computer simulations. However, the simulations of March (1991) excluded both ends of the socialization rate domain. When compensating for those missing portions, there is an optimal socialization rate that actually maximizes the average knowledge level. This is because low learning on the part of individuals actually causes frequent lock-ins and impedes learning. This optimal socialization rate may be a common rate for socialization, and we cannot deny this possibility by using only computer simulations. Moreover, this high knowledge level is achieved in a non-equilibrium state.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, no.1, pp.1-14, 2015-02-15 (Released:2015-02-15)

参考文献数

35

被引用文献数

3 9

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“Iron cage” appears to be mistranslated from Weber's “Gehäuse” by Parsons. Correctly speaking, it has been noted that the word should be translated as “shell,” which presents an extremely promising possibility in management studies: what appears to be a talisman on the front has rigid persons clinging onto the other side. If a shell has a competitive advantage, this would excuse the rigidity. However, if the shell is losing, or has already lost, its competitive advantage, clinging onto it becomes a problem. For example, Ford and IBM grew rapidly by clinging onto their shells―the Model T Ford in the case of Ford and the System/360 for IBM. However, these companies gradually went into decline later as their product design fossilized. Apart from product designs, it is easy to find examples of shells in companies that have experienced periods of growth and maturity, for example, retail networks, parent company sales power, real estate, patents, and franchise. Both managers and employees are fully aware that they can no longer expect growth as long as they cling onto their shell. Even so, the shell remains a source of rent. Hence, they are clinging onto it and are being driven to their ruin by inches.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI Hirofumi OHKAWA Nobuyuki INAMIZU

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, no.6, pp.343-352, 2014-12-15 (Released:2014-12-15)

参考文献数

16

被引用文献数

4 8

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Japanese companies often criticize themselves on their own “nurumayu [lukewarm] nature”; however, in reality, according to Takahashi (1989), the lukewarm feeling felt by organization members can be explained through the effective temperature hypothesis. An organization's propensity to change as a system is measured as system temperature, while a member's propensity to change as an organization person is measured as body temperature. The lukewarm feeling felt by members can then be explained using effective temperature, which is defined as the system temperature minus the body temperature. This paper validates the effective temperature hypothesis using data from Survey X, an exhaustive survey of all employees of Japanese Company X, which is successful in organizational reform. The survey was carried out once a fiscal year, during the fiscal years 2004–2013. Like the results of the JPC Survey of Takahashi (2013), those of Survey X show the coefficient of determination of 0.9840 with a surprisingly neat straight line, demonstrating a direct relationship wherein the lukewarm feeling ratio drops as the effective temperature rises.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, no.6, pp.299-313, 2014-12-15 (Released:2014-12-15)

参考文献数

27

被引用文献数

2 3

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The price of patents is limited by four sides of business management: (1) avoiding costs of the patent in question; (2) founder's profit of inventors, such as researchers and engineers, to bear risks involved in business establishment; (3) factors supporting competitive advantage identified in the resource-based view of strategic management; and (4) negative impact of big money for the researcher's invention. This tetragon of limitations bounds the price range of patents. This is illustrated by exemplifying the blue LED lawsuit case in Japan. This study presents the four side views on the differences between what companies pursue and what employee inventors pursue. However, these various differences make it possible to coexist and co-prosper between companies and inventors, otherwise they continue the tug-of-war forever on the one-dimensional monetary scale.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI Hirofumi OHKAWA Nobuyuki INAMIZU

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, no.5, pp.243-254, 2014-10-15 (Released:2014-10-15)

参考文献数

19

被引用文献数

3 15

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In most Japanese companies, regular employees work under a lifetime employment system and a seniority-based pay system. Under such conditions of no contingent money payments, we can accurately observe the phenomena associated with intrinsic motivation. Therefore, we conducted Survey X, an exhaustive survey for all employees of Company X carried out once a fiscal year, during the fiscal years 2004–2013. Using the total 13,019 employees' data of Survey X, we test a version of Deci's (1975) hypothesis that if a person's feeling of self-determination is enhanced, his or her job satisfaction will increase. As a result, there is a strong linear relationship between the job satisfaction ratio and the degree of self-determination. However, occupation and rank tend to determine the band of fluctuation with respect to the degree of self-determination. This indicates a strong likelihood that there is a spurious correlation between a degree of self-determination and a job satisfaction ratio.

著者

Nobuo TAKAHASHI Hirofumi OHKAWA Nobuyuki INAMIZU

出版者

グローバルビジネスリサーチセンター・東京大学MERC

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, no.4, pp.231-242, 2014-08-15 (Released:2014-08-15)

参考文献数

21

被引用文献数

8 15

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The perspective index (Takahashi, 2014) was tested in a company that has been successful in the process of organizational reform, Company X. An exhaustive survey (Survey X) for all employees was conducted once a fiscal year from 2004 to 2013. According to Survey X, over 13,000 employees showed near-perfect linearity between perspective index and job satisfaction ratio/turnover candidate ratio. Each occupational and rank category also showed a near-straight line, although the values greatly varied per year before and after organizational reform. However, the incline and intercept points of the lines somewhat differed contingent on the occupational and rank category. This might explain the difference between data from Survey X and that of the JPC Survey conducted in Takahashi (2014).