Japanese entrepreneurs and their firms: survey results

Abstract

"Entrepreneurs" and "entrepreneurial firms" are among the most popular words in Japan. Not only business people but also government officials and academics often mention these words. The meanings of these words, however, are not clear. "What are entrepreneurial firms?" "What kinds of characteristics do their founders and CEOs have?" Such are the questions that remain to be answered. To answer these questions, I organised the research group at the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, or the NISTEP, the policy research arm of the Science and Technology Agency, and carried out a large-scale questionnaire survey and intensive case studies. This is the simplified report of the survey results. The full report written in Japanese is available.