E-Book, Englisch, 406 Seiten, eBook
ISBN: 978-3-540-31248-2
Verlag: Springer
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark
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Weitere Infos & Material
Designing the Product Architecture for High Appropriability: The Case of Canon.- Case Study Shimano: Market Creation Through Component Integration.- Invisible Dimensions of Innovation: Strategy for De-commoditization in the Japanese Electronics Industry.- The Customer System and New Product Development: The Material Supplier’s Strategy in Japan.- The Japanese Know-Who Based Model of Innovation Management — Reducing Risk at High Speed.- The Domestic Shaping of Japanese Innovations.- Exploiting “Interface Capabilities” in Overseas Markets: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Handset Manufacturers in the US.- “Fuzzy Front End” Practices in Innovating Japanese Companies.- Implementing Process Innovation — The Case of the Toyota Production System.- Reorientation in Product Development for Multiproject Management: The Toyota Case.- Suppliers’ Involvement in New Product Development in the Japanese Auto Industry — A Case Study from a Product Architecture Perspective.- NPD-Process and Planning in Japanese Engineering Companies — Findings from an Interview Research.- Japanese New Product Advantage: A Comparative Examination.- Differences in the Internationalization of Industrial R&D in the Triad.- Global Innovation and Knowledge Flows in Japanese and European Corporations.- Reducing Project Related Uncertainty in the “Fuzzy Front End” of Innovation — A Comparison of German and Japanese Product Innovation Projects.- From Practice: IP Management in Japanese Companies.- MoT: From Academia to Management Practice — The MoT Implementation Case in a Traditional Japanese Company.
Japanese New Product Advantage: A Comparative Examination (p. 269-270)
Cheryl Nakata and Subin Im
Introduction
Over the last few decades, Japanese companies have been at the cusp of innovation, introducing new products to receptive buyers throughout the world. Toyota’s Prius, a hybrid gas-electric car, and Casio’s Exilim, a palm-sized digital camera, are just a few of the products recently developed and successfully marketed from Japan. The key reason for these products’ popularity appears to be built-in advantage, or superiority, over rival offerings. For example, the Prius saves on fuel costs, emits almost no fumes, requires little maintenance, and sells at an affordable price. Despite such successes, Japanese companies are unable to rest on any laurels.
Nipping at their heels are South Korean firms, which are vying with Japanese businesses in their traditionally strong sectors of consumer electronics and automotives. Samsung is perhaps the most notable challenger. The firm has introduced a flood of new products in the last several years, winning design accolades and many new customers for its premium cell phones, plasma flat-screen TVs, and ultra- thin computer monitors, among other innovations. In several of these categories, the firm is the global market leader or is a close second in sales. Along with several other companies based in South Korea (referred hereafter as Korea), Samsung is making great strides in innovation, mastering the ability to create advantageous new products.
Given this dynamic rivalry between Japanese and Korean businesses, we thought it timely to investigate new product advantage comparatively across the two countries. Specifically, we pursue these questions: 1) "how do Japanese companies create new product advantage and in what ways may the approach differ or be similar to that of Korean counterparts?" and 2) "does greater advantage necessarily lead to higher sales, profitability, and market share for Japanese companies, i.e. stronger new product performance, and is the relationship between advantage and performance different or the same for Korean firms?"
It is interesting to note that despite the significance of the Japanese and Korean economies, whose combined GNP of $4.5 trillion ranks only second after that of the U.S., there is limited understanding of how these countries have come to excel in export-led growth, particularly through the sales of new products to foreign markets. Our search of the literature indicates few investigations have been conducted on new product advantage among Asia-based businesses. There is only one published study on new product development in Korean enterprises (Mishra, Kim and Lee 1996), but it is not specific to the topic of advantage. In other words, the above questions have not been previously addressed as best we can tell. Hence, we believe our study will be of interest and value to managers and researchers who are aware of, and wanting to fathom, the tremendous rise of innovation capabilities outside the West.
We began our study by proposing a conceptual model of new product advantage, with differences and similarities noted between Japanese and Korean approaches in terms of drivers and performance outcomes. We then tested the model by conducting a survey of over 200 new product development managers in Japanese and Korean firms. In the following sections, we present the conceptual model, followed by the research hypotheses. Thereafter, we describe the methodology and findings, and conclude with implications for managers and researchers.
