Business Innovation in Asia: Knowledge and Technology Networks from Japan

ISBN-13: 9780415499354 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 208 str.

Dennis McNamara

Opis

Industrial competition with the rising China and the NIEs, new regional investment from the West, and now trade pacts among her competitors threaten Japan’s long postwar prominence. Global market dynamics and regional competition prompted her shift from offshore factories to local networks in the last decade. Similar forces are driving the recent formation of regional Nikkei - Japan-affiliated - nodes in major industrial clusters in Asia

The central concept of this volume, "knowledge networks," refers to interactive linkages around nodes of tacit and codified knowledge embedded in Global Value Chains. Such networks can be distinguished by the process or format of information exchange, the organization of the networks within firms, and by target market or product.

Through survey evidence and interviews at firms and factories this book reveals the problems facing knowledge transfer, such as persisting difficulties in communication, technology transfer, and indigenous learning in regional nodes of Nikkei Value Chains and the persistence of earlier patterns of hierarchical coordination in information flows despite the shift towards more horizontal network organization. However, a comparison of Nikkei knowledge networks in China, Korea, and Thailand reveals the possibilities of an interactive learning community in cross-border investment. If Japan can meet the challenge of tapping Asia’s offshore resources for innovation, it will pose a formidable global challenge to Western competitors.

This book will be of interest to academics, postgraduate students and professionals working in the field of Asian business, innovation, globalization and network theory.

O autorze

Dennis McNamara is the Park Professor of Sociology and Korean Studies, and Special Assistant to the University President for China Affairs.