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Contributions and Future Research

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Mechanisms for Long-Term Innovation

Part of the book series: Advances in Japanese Business and Economics ((AJBE,volume 31))

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Abstract

In this chapter, we identify the contributions and implications of the book and then construct arguments for future research. One of the arguments concerns the contradiction between industry development and company profitability. Groundbreaking breakthroughs that led to the emergence of dominant designs, the convergence of technological approaches in the industry, and the creation of de facto standards for element shapes have certainly contributed to industrial development. However, they also led to fierce competition for homogeneity, which squeezed the profitability of companies. The question of how the balance between the convergence and standardization of technological approaches and the profitability of individual firms affects industrial development is beyond the scope of this book, but it is an important theme. In addition, the role of the commercial market as an experimentation ground and the possibility that the specific reasons justifying development within a company influence the direction of technological development are also presented as a possible future research theme.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Chap. 7.

  2. 2.

    Ohya and Niwa (1988), p.53.

  3. 3.

    Nakao (1990) p. 235.

  4. 4.

    It should also be noted that resource acquisition strategies using surface level consent may become an encumbrance later on (Taniguchi, 2016; 2017; Tsuboyama, 2011).

  5. 5.

    Toyobo's survival strategy of specializing in niche markets may be partly due to internal resource constraints. In the late 1990s, Toyobo managed to keep its RO membrane business profitable by drastically reducing the number of employees. In such a situation, it was impossible for the business to expand in a wide range of fields. they needed to focus on large-scale seawater desalination plants in the Middle East, where it could take advantage of the characteristics of its technology.

  6. 6.

    In the realm of social movement research, it has been noted that movements expand when multiple different frames phase in under an abstract master frame (Benford and Snow, 2000; Gerhards and Rucht, 1992).

  7. 7.

    The importance of innovation activities through the interaction of demand pull and technology push has also been pointed out by Di Stefano, Gambardella, and Verona (2012).

  8. 8.

    If the development is expected to be completed within a short period of time, the inconsistency between reasons and actions may not be so much of a problem and subterfuge may be used because it is only necessary to mobilize resources for the time being. However, if the development is prolonged, the duplicitous strategy will damage the credibility of the individual developer or the project, and it will be difficult to mobilize resources continuously for a long time. Therefore, when development is expected to be prolonged, a high degree of consistency between reasons and actions is even more needed.

  9. 9.

    As presented by Kato (2013), strategic orientation is a concept that was originally discussed in relation to management outcomes. In addition, Kohli and Jaworski (1990) developed the concept of “strategic orientation” in a different manner from Venkatraman (1989) by adding technology orientation instead of interfunctional coordination among the three original dimensions of market orientation (customer orientation, competition orientation, and interfunctional coordination) and discussed the relationship between their three orientation dimensions and innovation (Gatignon and Xuereb, 1997; Spanjol et al., 2012; Spanjol et al., 2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Business Administration, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan

    Masatoshi Fujiwara & Yaichi Aoshima

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  1. Masatoshi Fujiwara
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  2. Yaichi Aoshima
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Correspondence to Masatoshi Fujiwara .

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Fujiwara, M., Aoshima, Y. (2022). Contributions and Future Research. In: Mechanisms for Long-Term Innovation. Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, vol 31. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4896-1_15

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