著者

Yuki Mitomi

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0181031a, (Released:2018-12-05)

参考文献数

15

被引用文献数

4

---

The time pressure felt by consumers in a limited time situation has long been of interest. However, there have been no discussions in the existing literature regarding time pressure in long-term time constraints, which run from a few days to a few weeks for limited time edition products. In this research, a web survey was conducted on how the perceived quality of limited edition products with time constraints changed with the strength of time constraints in limited edition products. Results showed that limited edition products with a time constraint of 1 week were assessed to be of higher quality than those that had a time constraint of 1 month, with consumers feeling stronger time pressure.

著者

Yufu Kuwashima

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0181009a, (Released:2018-11-15)

参考文献数

9

被引用文献数

3

---

Watts and Dodds (2007) showed that in a simulation, supporters of opinion leaders have larger influence than opinion leaders themselves. In this paper, a case analysis was done of an anonymous housewife who created a network and acquired supporters on a social network and then started an apparel brand. The analysis revealed that influence strengthens by having both (a) a network centered around an opinion leader and (b) a complete network with six hardcore fans acting as supporters.

著者

Hidenori Sato

出版者

Global Business Research Center

雑誌

Annals of Business Administrative Science (ISSN:13474464)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.0180830a, (Released:2018-09-29)

参考文献数

27

被引用文献数

3

---

A call center is a division that specializes in dealing with customers. Early studies on call centers regarded them as strategically important areas that, despite some negative aspects, were acknowledged to possess a certain level of expertise and to have a high degree of autonomy as interfaces for customers. However, this view gradually changed, with call centers coming to be seen as workplaces typified by harsh working conditions and isolated from the other divisions of the company. Therefore, research in recent years has entirely focused on these negative aspects, while ignoring the positive aspects.

著者

Fumihiko Ikuine

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.4, pp.183-191, 2018-08-15 (Released:2018-08-15)

参考文献数

11

---

When a company acquires new knowledge, it expects to create new business by fusing the new knowledge with existing knowledge. At least that is how things appear superficially. However, Fujitsu’s new business development discussed in this paper was not related to any new knowledge but sprung up because of other reasons. Because the company had invested a lot of resources to acquire new knowledge, it was impossible to recover the management resources that it had invested, which then became sunk costs, unless the company did something. We call such a situation “sunk cost pressure.” In the case examined in this paper, this sunk cost pressure induced the combining of disparate knowledge in the company’s possession, thus creating new business.

著者

Nobuyuki Inamizu Mitsuru Makishima

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.4, pp.159-169, 2018-08-15 (Released:2018-08-15)

参考文献数

12

被引用文献数

3

---

This study analyzes the relationship between work engagement (WE) and job performance based on data from 3,296 individuals obtained in an internet survey. First, the analysis was conducted with WE as an explanatory variable, as well as with job performance, which was measured as the difference in personal and workmate evaluations, as an objective variable, and yet no clear relationship was found. Job performance was then used as an explanatory variable and WE as an objective variable, and that analysis discovered a clear inverse U relationship between the two. In other words, WE is low when job performance is low or high, and high when job performance is in the middle range. Also, when an analysis was done with the prediction that sum of, rather than differences in, personal and workmate assessments will have a strong relationship with WE, it was found that there was a clear, positive linear relationship between the two. In other words, the more a person highly evaluates not only oneself but also one’s workmates, the higher the WE. Existing studies tend to believe that WE heightens job performance, yet this study indicates that the converse is perhaps true in this cause and effect relationship. It also suggests that WE increases as one builds healthy relationships with workmates, evaluates them highly, and works hard and competes in a friendly manner with them.

著者

Masami Abe

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.4, pp.145-158, 2018-08-15 (Released:2018-08-15)

参考文献数

12

被引用文献数

3

---

It is said that when an organization embarks on a new activity, the entire organization needs to be on board with the organizational purpose of that activity. However, in the case of Hospital X, which implemented kaizen, even though the purposes of kaizen differed across workers, the usefulness of these new activities was communicated as being shared purposes (a) among workers in the same division where superiors and subordinates work closely together and (b) among workers performing the same jobs but in different divisions. Thus, the new activities were adopted by the entire organization without having a common organizational purpose.

著者

Hiroki Kikuchi

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.133-143, 2018-06-15 (Released:2018-06-15)

参考文献数

21

被引用文献数

4

---

Novel ideas tend to be resisted within existing organizations. Mobilizing resources requires that legitimacy be secured in some form. In the case of the development of JR Central's 300-series Shinkansen, Japan National Railway, which had existed to date, was broken up and privatized, and JR Central, which generated most of its revenue from the Shinkansen, was established, limiting players and allowing the company to gain the approval of most internal organizations. In other words, the company was able to acquire legitimacy by increasing the ratio of supporters rather than the absolute number of supporters.

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

Masayuki Hatta

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.1, pp.31-43, 2018-02-15 (Released:2018-02-15)

参考文献数

16

被引用文献数

1

---

This document analyzes the evolution of policy-related discussions in open source software by using several projects’ policy mailing list archives and focusing on the Debian Project. More specifically, it utilizes approximately 70,000 pieces of mail exchanged since the end of the 1990s, investigating the rise and fall in activity and what sort of topics was discussed. The results of this paper’s inquiry suggest that mail volumes peaked in 2005, that policy discussions were led and mainly contributed to by a relatively small subset of persons who only posted related to policy, and that overall mailing list traffic (not only related to policy) declined after 2006, possibly due to a transfer of discussion to Wikis, chats, and other such platforms.

著者

Yoshiaki Yamashiro

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.1, pp.11-21, 2018-02-15 (Released:2018-02-15)

参考文献数

13

被引用文献数

2

---

Many motorcycle dealers are family businesses, and they are rather oriented to short-term sales and do not operate only on logic without an emotional stake. Harley-Davidson Japan (HDJ) set up an authorized dealership system made up only of dealers with no capital relationship and did not directly manage dealers. This paper examines the period from 1991 to 2008, when Toshifumi Okui was the CEO of HDJ, during which time HDJ maintained top market share among large motorcycle companies in Japan and was a successful example of distribution system integration for other motorcycle manufacturers. For the dealers to implement HDJ’s intentions, the formal side of HDJ’s distribution system integration focused on the institutionalization of a “no control sales zero policy” and a “multilayer human relationship building policy.” However, critical to these were informal handwritten letters from the top-level management and the “Tokyo Court.”

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

---

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

Seungkee MIN

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.265-272, 2016-12-15 (Released:2016-12-15)

参考文献数

11

被引用文献数

2 2

---

Von Hippel (1988) coined the term “user innovation” by arguing that semiconductor device makers (equipment users) played a critical role as innovators in the development of semiconductor process equipments. However, in the same period of this study, the Japanese semiconductor process equipment manufacturer, ULVAC, autonomously conducted fundamental research on the material composition of cobalt–nickel–chrome (CoNiCr), a study that is generally conducted by device makers. Based on the material research outcome, ULVAC developed new manufacturing equipment for HDD and supplied it to users (device makers). Here we define this phenomenon as “adverse user innovation,” which works in an opposite manner to the “user innovation” of von Hippel (1988). In fact, there are likely to be numerous other examples similar to this case.

著者

Youngkyo SUH

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.251-263, 2016-12-15 (Released:2016-12-15)

参考文献数

18

被引用文献数

1 4

---

The production systems of Japanese companies are considered to be firm-specific advantages, which lead to superior productivity. The mother factory system, exemplified by Toyota Motor Corporation, has been used as a primary method for transferring Japanese production systems overseas. However in recent years, some companies, such as Hyundai Motor Company of Korea, have begun using a different way to transfer production methods overseas. This paper terms this method the “model factory system” and compares it with the mother factory system within the framework of knowledge transfer theory. In this framework, production systems are regarded as knowledge held by the home country. In this analytical framework, members, tools, and manuals represent knowledge that is directly moved; skills, organizations, and layouts represent knowledge that can be reproduced by the recipient. This framework was used to analyze cases of production system transfer overseas by Toyota Motor Corporation and Hyundai Motor Company. It was shown that the mother factory system primarily transfers knowledge from the home country’s factories, whereas the model factory system transfers knowledge from the corporate headquarters.

著者

Shohei HAMAMATSU

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.5, pp.211-220, 2016-10-15 (Released:2016-10-15)

参考文献数

15

被引用文献数

1 2

---

In response to arguments on the hollowing out of industries whereby an expansion in overseas production causes decreased domestic production, recent studies, primarily in the field of international economics, have pointed out the increase in domestic production due to an expansion in overseas production. Regarding specific mechanisms, Amano (2000) emphasized that when large companies with abundant management resources expand their overseas production, their spontaneous and induced conversion behaviors cause an increase in domestic production. Responding to this assertion, on the basis of case studies on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with few management resources, this paper discovered a mechanism in which abundant management resources are not assumed. This mechanism was observed in the automotive parts industry in Japan, which faces difficulties in acquiring new customers because of fixed relationships. In this industry, it is possible to acquire new customers domestically through torihiki-jisseki (“track record of transactions” in Japanese) when overseas manufacturing sites conduct business with new customers. However, this strategy is a paradox for SMEs in Japan that wish to grow and survive domestically since it advocates overseas expansion rather than domestic expansion.

著者

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.15, no.5, pp.199-209, 2016-10-15 (Released:2016-10-15)

参考文献数

20

被引用文献数

5

---

This study conducted a questionnaire survey of all employees at a company that moved its office location, both before and after the move. Results of the survey showed that while work environment satisfaction rose significantly because of the office move, there was no significant change in job satisfaction (in fact, some deterioration was observed). In addition, there was no significant change in the perspective index, which is regarded as a factor in job satisfaction, after the move. Existing studies on offices have asserted that job satisfaction increases along with work environment satisfaction. These results, however, made it difficult to posit such simple causation, showing the need for further testing and consideration.

著者

Atsushi AKIIKE Sotaro KATSUMATA

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.3, pp.149-161, 2016-06-15 (Released:2016-06-15)

参考文献数

18

被引用文献数

2

---

The mobile phone market in Japan has a particular type of user, called a “dual product user,” who uses multiple mobile phones. Compared with other mobile phone users, dual product users possess a high level of consumer knowledge regarding mobile phones. Their ability to process information based on their high level of consumer knowledge may enable them to use multiple products. In fact, during our survey, the mobile phones (iPhones, other types of smartphones, and feature phones) had quite diverse characteristics. In addition, dual product users tended to use mobile phones for gaming. This is likely due to the high telecommunications fees levied on smartphones in Japan as well as the complicated structure of these fees. In assessing these characteristics, users with a high level of consumer knowledge consider their own patterns of usage when using multiple mobile phones for different purposes. These findings will increase the potential for marketing to target those with a high degree of such knowledge.

著者

Hiroki KIKUCHI Shumpei IWAO

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

pp.0160213a, (Released:2016-05-13)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

1 4

---

Since the development of the idea of dynamic capabilities by Teece, Pisano, and Shuen (1997), it has been broadly discussed. However, there is no general view regarding the types of competencies that can be called dynamic capabilities. Teece et al. (1997) asserted that dynamic capabilities are one of the roles of organizational processes. Moreover, they asserted that organizational processes include static concepts, such as integration and coordination. This fact caused some confusion. Helfat and Winter (2011) contrasted the two concepts of operational and dynamic capabilities. They noted that the source of confusion was the fact that some competencies possess the nature of both concepts. In other words, three types of capabilities exist: pure operational, pure dynamic, and hybrid capabilities possessing both features. Helfat and Winter (2011) presented the example of corporate growth, such as an expansion in retail stores, an area where pure dynamic capabilities without any operational capabilities can be observed. Therefore, if pure dynamic capabilities are the pure competencies necessary for corporate growth, it is highly likely that these are the same competencies posited by Penrose (1959), who differentiated between economies of growth and economies of size. Takahashi (2015) conjectured that competencies that become resources unused for anything but growth are, more specifically, “competencies for start-up experts.”

著者

Kenichi KUWASHIMA

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

pp.0160224a, (Released:2016-05-11)

参考文献数

19

被引用文献数

1 4

---

In pharmaceutical research and development of drugs, discovering new drugs from a large number of potential alternatives (chemical compounds), which are theoretically as many as 1060, is an important challenge. Here the new-drug discovery process was explored through a case study on Rozerem from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. Although the recent mainstream approach is to generate and test a large number of alternatives using automation technologies, Rozerem was discovered through exploration of a small number of alternatives with rational chemical compound design, based on researchers’ experience and knowledge.

著者

Hideko KONO

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.3, pp.119-128, 2016-06-15 (Released:2016-06-15)

参考文献数

13

被引用文献数

2 2

---

This study provides an analysis of the successful diversification process from the perspective of “weak ties.” Weak ties bring about new knowledge that does not overlap existing knowledge and are therefore useful to firms entering new markets. This study analyzes the diversification process using the example of Tokai Buhin Kogyo Co. Ltd., which successfully diversified from automobile components to medical equipment. The company’s president initiated the formation of weak ties, which the company then developed into strong ties so that it could acquire the knowledge and competence needed for entering the medical equipment business. As a result, the company was able to successively overcome three types of critical obstacles—technological, regulatory, and market—to diversifying into the medical equipment business.

著者

Takeaki WADA

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

pp.0160118a, (Released:2016-03-10)

参考文献数

24

被引用文献数

2 2

---

Business management research in Japan categorizes resources into four categories: people, goods, money, and information. Among these, there has been a strong focus on information-based resources, which are company-specific. The notion that these resources are the basis of competitive advantage and inimitability has been considered the reason that Japanese companies exhibited a high level of international competitiveness in the 1980s. However, Japan’s international competitiveness has been declining since the 1990s. In fact, (a) information-based resources include not only information but also the capability to utilize that information, (b) resources with low inimitability are mixed in with information-based resources, and (c) information-based resources exhibit stickiness not to companies but to people and goods. Therefore, information-based resources do not automatically become sources of competitiveness. These facts were not comprehended until the 1980s, because Japanese companies were unconsciously able to accumulate information-based resources with high inimitability through Japanese-style management systems, like the lifetime commitment system. However, these preconditions for Japanese competitiveness were lost in the 1990s, resulting in an outflow of information-based resources embodied in workers and the decline of Japanese companies’ international competitiveness.