Innovation In Japan Research Articles

Organizational Factors Leading to Innovation in Japan’s Radio Industry

Organizational Factors Leading to Innovation in Japan’s Radio Industry

Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer consumption, and technological innovation: A comprehensive quantile analysis

This paper investigates the asymmetric inter-linkages and causality between agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer consumption, and technological innovation in four main agricultural countries i.e., China, the United States, Japan and Canada, by employing monthly data from 1990 to 2019. Accordingly, Quantile-on-Quantile (QQ) regression and two causality-in-quantile approaches are applied to conduct a comprehensive quantile analysis of the asymmetric relationship for all quantiles of the above distribution. Our results exhibit a positive association between agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer consumption, and technological innovation in China, the United States and Canada. Besides, the strength of the positive association depends largely on the development level of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer consumption, and technological innovation. However, except for the positive impact between fertilizer consumption and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, I find a negative nexus between agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and technological innovation in Japan. Compared with the other three sample countries, Japan has done the best in agricultural greenhouse gas emission mitigation. The results also demonstrate that agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer consumption, and technological innovation follow a bidirectional quantile-causality relation in all sample countries. Overall, I find that fertilizer consumption does increase agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, and that technological innovation has not played a full role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in most countries. Finally, our findings have significant implications for formulating reasonable emission reduction measures in the agricultural sector.

Deviation from the System of “Nourishing Life”: Religious Innovation in Japan

In this response to Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz’s celebrated essay on non-European concepts in the global study of religion, I discuss the possibility for religious innovation in a socio-religious situation stabilised by objectified elite perspectives by reference to formative teachings and practices in Tenrikyō, a religion founded by Nakayama Miki in 1838. Nakayama Miki’s deviation from the knowledge system of “nourishing life” (yōjō), especially in regard to perinatal food taboos, analysed here on the basis of hagiographical accounts of the foundress, aimed to free humans from all food restrictions. By concentrating on the traditional Japanese “nourishing life” system and its food regulations as an identity marker of the “other”, proponents of freedom from them, as taught by the foundress, contributed in some way, paradoxically, to the stabilisation of the norms.

Research on the involvement and success factors of star scientists in start-ups

Star scientists are an essential driver of innovation. Studies into the concept of star scientists were first carried out by Professor Lynne Zucker and Professor Michael Darby from the University of California. They identified that in science research fields a very small number of scientists are responsible for the notable discoveries, and that the brightest scientists in the world produce more publications, attract more citations and lodge more patents than other scientists. An international collaboration led by the Waseda Business School and the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Japan has expanded on the concept of star scientists. Their novel JST-RISTEX project, entitled ‘Star Scientists and Innovation in Japan’ focuses on understanding innovation and entrepreneurship, and the role star scientists play in this in Japan. Associate Professor Kanetaka Maki is the Principal Investigator. Building a list of star scientists in Japan and constructing data sets that can be used for star scientist research were the two main project outputs. Key activities for the team were evaluating an initiative the Government of Japan introduced in 1998 promoting university-industry technology transfer and providing scientific evidence regarding the allocation of research funds from the perspective of a star scientist, in order to ensure that Japan remains competitive in the world, in terms of scientific innovation with real-world applications for industry. The project is the first to conduct science and technology innovation and related policy evaluation in Japan from the perspective of a star scientist using quantitative analysis.

Pengendalian Kualitas Dengan Menggunakan Metode Seven Tools Untuk Meningkatkan Produktivitas Di PT Jogjatex

This study aims to determine quality control at PT. JOGJATEX, find out the factors that cause product defects, find out what are the main problems that cause product damage. and provide solutions to reduce the level of product defects. PT JOGJATEX which is engaged in textile knitting. The method used in this study is the Seven Tool Seven tools method is a graphical method used to solve problems in the field of production, especially problems related to quality (Quality). These seven tools or seven basic tools were discovered and introduced for the first time by Kaoru Ishikawa in 1968 who was a figure of quality management innovation in Japan. The conclusion of this study is regarding the production defect report at the Jogjatex company. This product defect is affected by internal and external influences. These factors are basically influenced by several factors including temperature, human resources and machines. The solution taken to overcome the problem in this research is to design a room temperature detector, namely the DS18B20 Temperature Sensor.

“Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning”: An Initiative to Ensure Learning in Japan During the Pandemic

Purpose During Japan's initial pandemic prevention and control period, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (MEXT) issued several notifications to ensure students’ continuous learning according to the “leave no one behind” philosophy. This study focused on the comprehensive measures comprising top-level arrangements to implement the “suspending classes without stopping learning” initiative. Design/Approach/Methods The study reviewed MEXT's guide on ensuring learning for Japanese primary and secondary school students during the pandemic. Findings The pandemic has accelerated the development of the information and communications technology educational environment and the implementation of the Global and Innovation Gateway for All (GIGA) schools initiative. These developments laid the foundation for the evolution of diverse pedagogical models and feasible methods for promoting equity. The home schooling experience during the pandemic provided a natural base for students to practice and foster survivability. Originality/Value This paper provides scholars with an understanding of the opportunities and challenges encountered in educational innovation in Japan. It provides insights into the future direction of pedagogical development, capability development, and effective educational arrangements for extraordinary circumstances to facilitate educational development from a broader perspective, particularly under the new normal.

Japan: Political Developments and Data in 2021

AbstractThe year 2021 saw the resignation of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga after just a year in office, following steep declines in his government's approval ratings due to public dissatisfaction with aspects of his handling of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. His successor, former Minister for Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida, was nonetheless able to limit the ruling party's losses in a general election in late October, preventing the left‐wing opposition parties from making any advances. The centre‐right Japan Innovation Party/Nippon Ishin no Kai, however, gained 30 seats to become the third‐largest party in the Diet, consolidating its political grip on the region surrounding Japan's second‐largest city, Osaka.

Structural Imaging of Acoustic Survey Using a Deep-Towed Sub-Bottom Profiler and Hydrophone Cable

High-resolution images are required for the exploration of mineral resources on and beneath the deep seafloor. Under the Strategic Innovation Promotion Program launched by the Council for Science, Technology, and Innovation in Japan, we developed a survey system using a deep-towed acoustic source and receivers that produces very high-resolution subseafloor images. Our system uses a subbottom profiler as the acoustic source and a hydrophone cable as receivers. These instruments are towed near the seafloor by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). The subbottom profiler generates chirp signals in the frequency band of 700–2250 Hz, and 32 hydrophones with a receiver interval of 1 m record the reflected waves. The system also includes two recorder units that record the acoustic wavefield with a sampling interval of 0.1 ms. We carried out field surveys at two locations in Japan: one site is in the Sea of Japan where gas hydrates were discovered and the other site is near Okinawa Island where a plume from a hydrothermal smoker was recorded by an ROV camera. Pre-stack depth migration was applied to the processed data using velocity models with a constant velocity gradient below the seafloor. The vertical resolution was 0.5–1 m depending on the depth, and the horizontal resolution was about ten times larger than the vertical resolution. The resulting images show that detailed subseafloor structures can be clearly imaged by the deep-towed system, even at sea depths greater than 1000 m.

Analysis of the path and mode of tourism resources innovation in Japan

Analysis of the path and mode of tourism resources innovation in Japan

Impact of corporate social responsibility intensity on firm-specific risk and innovation: evidence from Japan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate investors’ perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its risk-mitigating effects on firm-level innovation in Japan from 2006 to 2017. The authors examine the influence of CSR intensity on firm-specific risks, focusing on the risk-moderating effect of CSR on innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a simple slope analysis and panel data regressions with input and output innovation measures and idiosyncratic risk based on an asset-pricing model.FindingsThe results demonstrate that CSR intensity not only reduces firm-specific risk directly but also indirectly by negatively moderating the relationship between firm-level innovation and idiosyncratic risk.Research limitations/implicationsSignaling trust to capital markets, CSR engagements in the manufacturing industry are clearly important for innovative firms with active research and development undertakings.Practical implicationsCorporate managers should further expand their efforts to make non-financial disclosures available, considering the interactions between CSR intensity and research and development financial risk.Originality/valueIn the context of Japanese firms, this study demonstrates the interaction between CSR practices and innovation activities from the perspective of long-term management of corporate sustainability.

Age-Friendly Environment and Community-Based Social Innovation in Japan: A Mixed-Method Study.

While governments are building age-friendly environments, community-based social innovation (CBSI) provides opportunities for older community residents to interact. Common CBSIs in Japan are in the form of group exercise activities or social-cultural activities, such as reading, writing, poetry, chorus, calligraphy, card game, knitting, planting trees, and cooking. In this study, an age-friendly environment in Japan was assessed quantitatively and qualitatively through the perceptions of community residents and their interaction with the environment. A cross-sectional survey of 243 participants and multiple in-depth interviews were carried out. A quantitative study applied the World Health Organization (WHO) framework of 20 age-friendly environmental factors with analysis applying a structural equation model. A qualitative study applied focus group meetings and in-depth interviews to conduct a thematic analysis of Japanese community residents' activities according to the WHO scope of CBSI for healthy aging. This age-friendly environment in Japan has provided pathways for the older people to sustain their social network, which promotes civic participation and engagement in peer group activities leading to active aging. CBSIs are the factors that lead to an age-friendly environment resulting in a sustainable quality of life. It is important to sustain CBSIs in the era of coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic as those are the paths leading to healthy aging communities and quality of older residents' life. The lessons learned about how physical environment and social participation result in healthy, active quality of life for older adults in Japan may be applicable to other contexts around the world.

Productivity and innovation in the Japanese construction industry

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify the essential elements required for innovation in the construction industry. To this end, the authors assessed the innovation at three levels: the firm growth account level, the firm behaviour level and the level of the firm’s experts. The factors influencing innovation at each level were identified and synthesised into guiding strategies for innovation.Design/methodology/approachThree methods were combined to develop a mode of thinking for innovation. First, at the semi-macro level, the authors identified the factors that influence the total factor productivity (TFP) by regressing the TFP across firms of the construction industry on a variety of extrinsic factors. Second, at the firm level, the authors extracted actual innovative firms from a large amount of public procurement individual data. The authors analysed the behaviours of these innovative firms. Third, the authors conducted a survey of expert-level personnel. In addition, a text analysis was performed to determine what was perceived by experts as a factor that leads to innovation.FindingsThe authors analysed the TFP, the behaviour of innovative firms and the perception issues between industry experts and stakeholders regarding innovation. As a result, two factors were identified. The first factor was the expectation of a positive solution to the problem through monopoly profits, future benefits and increased efficiency. The second factor was peer pressure from other organisations of a similar nature, peer pressure from users and technical information, as well as competitive conditions, e.g. recent environmental growth, including relevant innovations.Practical implicationsIn the context of innovation, static and dynamic thinking were important requirements. Static concepts were based on the accumulation of knowledge, such as patents and technological progress. Dynamic thinking involved a future outlook, including a competitive environment as a necessary condition. Actual technological innovation was driven by incentives and expectations.Social implicationsAccording to the results of this study, the authors make the following recommendations for enhancing the construction-industry innovation in Japan: do not rely on a patent policy to drive innovation, create an environment that encourages competition and develop an ongoing initiative that encourages and rewards innovation.Originality/valueThis study was novel, in that the nature of innovation was investigated at three levels: the TFP, firm behaviour and expert perceptions. The identification and extraction of the two resulting points – statically necessary and dynamically necessary elements – was a significant contribution of the study.

Consideration on Industry-Academia Partnering in Drug Discovery Development: Based on a Questionnaire Survey of Pharmaceutical Companies and Academia

Japanese pharmaceutical products continue to experience a trade deficit, since import values exceed export values. In drug discovery development, given the pace of technological innovations, there has been a major shift from low-molecular-weight compounds to biomedicine. It is anticipated that industry, academia and government will work more closely together in support of the pharmaceutical industry. Drug discovery requires much time and vast resources before the results can be put to practical use, and evidence suggests that many newly approved drugs derive from university-sourced technology. Pharmaceutical companies keep a close eye on technology evolving in universities. However, some reports state that there is a substantial difference compared to the development costs of the major Japanese pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, the authors hypothesized that there may be some issues hindering industrial-academic partnerships in drug discovery. In order to understand the actual situation and barriers to promoting industrial-academic collaboration, the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA), Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), and the Medical Industry-Academia Collaboration Network (medU-net) Council will work together in issuing questionnaires and conducting an awareness survey. This survey sought the personal opinions of individuals belonging to JPMA and medU-net. Based on the results of this survey, we will introduce the issues related to industrial-academic collaboration and partnerships, and any gaps between industry and academia. Furthermore, we suggest solutions to promoting drug discovery innovation in Japan.

High-speed rail, inter-regional accessibility, and regional innovation: Evidence from Japan

This study investigates the association between accessibility and regional innovation in Japan through an empirical analysis that uses 322 prefecture-level seven-year panel data drawn from 46 prefectures covering 1981 to 2014. It assumes that regional innovation is represented by the annual number of patent applications in a region, while accessibility is represented by the effective density (ED) and existence of high-speed rail (HSR) stations in the region. Regional knowledge productivity functions are estimated by incorporating the existence of HSR stations and ED as explanatory variables to examine the associations between accessibility and regional innovation. The results show that the existence of HSR stations has a positive and statistically significant association with knowledge productivity. We also observe a significant interaction effect of these two variables, implying that the association of HSR stations with regional knowledge productivity is positive only in lower ED cases. Furthermore, our results reveal that the agglomeration of the finance industry has a positive association with regional innovation. Policy implications from the findings are discussed, such as the indirect effect of transportation infrastructure development on regional innovation through accessibility and the importance of implementing transportation development strategies jointly with regional industrial development.

Industrial Evolution and Innovation in Japan

Industrial Evolution and Innovation in Japan

A comparison research between Korea and Japan concerning the practical education for industrial innovation by Industry-University collaboration

Professor Hiroyuki Ono, Sojeong Lee from the Graduate School of Science and Engineering at Yamagata University and Professor Masakazu Kimura at Shizuoka University , are comparing practical education for industrial innovation in Japan and South Korea. The findings will provide huge benefits to education programmes featuring industry-academia collaborations in both countries.

Japan's innovation for global health - GHIT's catalytic role.

The global fight against infectious diseases, both emerging and re-emerging, endures. Japan's commitments and reputation as a good global citizen and its responsibility to uphold domestic and international human security mean that it is in Japan's best interest to leverage its innovative and technological capabilities for global infectious disease prevention and control. The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund), an international non-profit organization based in Tokyo, Japan, was established by the Japanese government, multiple Japanese pharmaceutical companies, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the first fund of its kind, with an aim to tackle the global burden of infectious diseases by facilitating and funding global health R&D of drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics. Since its inception in 2013, the GHIT Fund has invested more than 209 million USD in more than 90 projects, which consist of collaborations among Japanese and non-Japanese entities, six of which have already progressed to clinical stage development. Japan will continue to play a major role in the global health arena by further advancing R&D innovations for infectious diseases.

PMU17 Health Technology Assessment for Procedures: The Evaluation of Innovation in JAPAN

PMU17 Health Technology Assessment for Procedures: The Evaluation of Innovation in JAPAN

A comparative study of the entrepreneurial motivation of undergraduate and graduate students in Japan

As entrepreneurs and start-ups have become increasingly significant components of world economic growth, Japan has enacted and discussed various policies to spur entrepreneurship. However, scant attention has been paid toward motivating its youth to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit. Therefore, this study focuses on undergraduate and graduate students and investigates their motivations to become entrepreneurs. The study has three findings. First, the entrepreneurial motivation of Japanese students ranks lower than that of students in the USA, China, India, Spain and Belgium. Second, compared to the motivations of students in other countries, Japanese students’ motivations to launch start-up businesses are few in terms of leadership and independence but many in terms of social contribution. Third, Japanese students believe that their lack of business knowledge and competence creates significant risks and barriers to launching start-up businesses. Finally, the paper discusses the impact of culture and barriers on entrepreneurial innovation in Japan compared to other countries.

Open Innovation in Japan

Japanese conglomerates are gradually transitioning from in-house closed innovation systems to open innovation strategies. Japanese universities are transforming themselves from sequestered halls of academia dedicated solely to research and teaching, strengthening academic-industrial cooperation to position themselves at the center of innovation. In this Opinions we take a look at reform ongoing at Japanese universities to strengthen academic-industrial cooperation and secure funding from the private sector, going on to identify valuable implications for universities in Korea.