Have Japanese Firms Changed?: The Lost Decade

If we ask simply whether Japanese business has changed, our answer must be an unequivocal yes and this is answered with a primary focus on technology, the traditional source of Japan’s strong competitiveness. But if we ask whether Japanese firms have also changed in any substantive ways we must accept a less sanguine conclusion.

TATEO ARIMOTO Director-General of the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX) and Deputy Director-General of the Centre for R&D Strategy in the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) CLAIR BROWN Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Work, Technology and Society, IRLE at UC Berkeley, USA EMILY W. CHOI Doctoral Candidate at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the UC Berkeley, USA ROBERT E. COLE Professor Emeritus of Walter A. Haas School of Business and the Department of Sociology at the UC Berkeley, USA SLI M. COLPAN Associate Professor and Mizuho Securities Chair at the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Japan SHINYA FUSHIMI General Manager of strategic IT business planning at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Tokyo, Japan TAKASHI HIKINO Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Economics and the Graduate School of Management at Kyoto University, Japan MITSUO ISHIDA Professor of Industrial Relations on the Faculty of Social Studies at Doshisha University, Japan AKIHIKO KAWAURA Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Policy& Management, Doshisha University, Japan MASANOBU KII Associate Professor of Environmental Policies and Planning on the Faculty of Engineering, Kagawa University, Japan JAMES R. LINCOLN Mitsubishi Professor of International Business and Finance at the Walter A. Haas School of Business of UC Berkeley, USA GREG LINDEN Research Associate at the Institute for Business Innovation, a research unit at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, USA JUN MA Professor of Management on the Faculty of Economics, University of Toyama, Japan DAI MIYAMOTO Lecturer in the Department of Economics, Ryutsu Keizai University, Japan SATORU MIYAZAKI Post-doctoral Fellow at ITEC at Doshisha University, Japan TAKEO NAKAO Professor of Economics on the Faculty of Economics at Doshisha University, Japan ATSUSHI SATO Professor on the Faculty of Lifelong Learning and Career Studies, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan MASAYUKI SANO Consultant and Founder of Libertas Terra Co. Ltd. a consulting firm specializing in energy and environmental issues TORU YOSHIKAWA Professor of Strategic Management at DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Canada XINGYUAN ZHANG Professor of Economics and Econometrics at Okayama University, Japan