In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Mari Ichinomoto, "The Method for Attracting Semiconductor Industries with Fabless Policies in Japan"

Recently most local governments in Japan are exploring overseas firms who have interests to expand their business in Japan. But now other Asian countries are becoming tougher competitors. What can the local governments do to achieve their mission? Is there a good way to compete against other countries in order to achieve their goal?

Takao Isozaki, "Organization Change - Preparation for DBJ's Privatization"

The Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), one of the Japanese governmental financial institutions, will be fully privatized for 5 to 7 years. Isozaki’s research examines what kind of aspects DBJ's workers should take into account as preparation for its privatization process.

Hisashi Kanazashi, "Comparison and Analysis of US-Japan Policies for Innovation"

After catching up with developed countries and experiencing the collapse of the bubble economy, Japan has struggled to recover. The key word during the struggle was “innovation”, and the Japanese government has pushed many reforms to encourage it. However, is the reform for innovation in Japan sufficient? The goal of Kanazashi’s research is to examine it by analyzing the recent trend of start-ups and comparing policies in the United States and in Japan.

In this session of Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Soichi Yushina, "The Role of Intellectual Property in the Innovation System"

Some Japanese working in the intellectual property field believe that in Silicon Valley (1) worker mobility is very fast and (2) trade secret is not protected sufficiently. Yushina’s research will try to answer if this is true or a myth?

Xuteng Hu, "Corporate Governance of China's Overseas Listed State-Controlled Companies"

Corporate governance is always the most complicated and difficult issue in both theoretical research and practical management of modern companies in the world. Corporate governance has become a hot issue in economic community, especially after Enron's bankruptcy. Hu's research focuses on the corporate governance of these companies and their operation, taking into account the rules on their relationship with parent companies, appointment of executives, formation of board of directors and supervisor board, information disclosure, and protection of medium and small investors' interests.

Noriaki Komori, "Key Success Factors for Online Commerce"

Amazon.com is the largest pure-online commerce company. In researching what the key success factors are, Komori describes their customer centric culture and technology to develop their system.

About the talk
Japan is at a critical turning point in 2008, with two opposing groups and views. One is the view that Japan, with its current social, political and economic system, will have difficulty renewing itself, while the other view is that the past success formula of a closed corporate innovation system supported by engineers and "hardware driven" technology is still viable.

With the accelerating pace of globalization and ICT, what will become of Japan, its private sector and public sector? Will its once-leading clean and green technologies survive and make an impact on the resolution of global issues? What are the potential areas for collaboration with the innovative and dynamic Silicon Valley?

About the speaker
As professor of business strategy and innovation at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University, Dr. Yoko Ishikura teaches the Competitiveness and Problem Solving courses, is responsible for the Executive Opinion Survey in Japan for the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum, and is a member of the Council for Science & Technology Policy at the Japanese Cabinet Office.

She was a board member of Japan Post and Vodafone KK and is currently a member of the board at Mitsui OSK Lines and the advisory board of All Nippon Airways and is a frequent speaker/moderator at various international forums and seminars, including the Global Innovation Ecosystem Conference, the World Economic Forum and the World Knowledge Forum, among others.

She received an MBA from the Darden School, University of Virginia and DBA from Harvard Business School. She worked at McKinsey Inc. Japan in the late 1980s. Her “Act Globally, Think Locally” was one of the breakthrough ideas for 2007 in the Harvard Business Review.