Leveraging Japan's ``old economy''

Abstract

Those predicting Japan’s decline overlook one of its greatest resources: its large, established firms and the model that produced them. With the tribulations of Panasonic, Sony, and others in the headlines, this claim may seem to be dubious and to run counter to the many efforts underway to increase the role of start-up firms and the system that created them. However, almost any country can produce start-ups. Japan lags behind many of its regional competitors at doing so and will continue to do so for years. But, few of Japan’s rivals can leverage the creative power of entrepreneurial firms with the stock of established companies and stable institutions that Japan has developed over the last several decades. The Open Innovation paradigm, popularized by Henry Chesbrough in his book of the same name, suggests how to leverage Japan’s old economy with the new economy it hopes to create. Based on my paper, ``Capturing Japan’s strengths through open innovation [Open Innovation de Nihon no tsuyomi o ikasu]“, Hitotsubashi Business Review, 2012, 60(2): 42-55.

Publication
Council on Foreign Relations
Date