Tomoatsu Shibata

<p>Within previous research on innovation management, the concept of ambidextrous organizations that allow the two different activities of exploration and exploitation with their different objectives and characteristics to coexist within an organization while being separated has been presented. Regardless of the fact that the relationship between exploration and exploitation differs depending on situations, existing literature does not consider these differences and therefore has only limited relevance and effectiveness. This paper focuses on the product substitutability of exploratory product and existing core products, proposes the cannibalistic and complementary types of ambidextrous organizations, and discusses effective management respectively. Then, through in-depth case study of Fujifilm, the paper illustrates how contingency framework of an ambidextrous organization will be effective for explaining the survival of Fujifilm in the emergence of digitalization. Thus, this paper aims to refine and enhance the concept of ambidextrous organization.</p>

In recent years, there has been a growing need for strategies that provide for convergence in the development of products and services and building of business models that integrate different technologies and services and span different industries. The question is: What kind of strategies and organizations should a company construct for R&amp D activities to develop new products, services, and business models that will be realized through the integration of different technologies and convergence across industries? The key concept in a company's actions for adapting to (or creating) a worldview of such convergence lies in knowledge convergence through a boundaries vision, which this paper discusses. The paper presents a case study that analyzes in detail the R&amp D framework of Fujifilm as a company that achieved success in new business areas by realizing knowledge convergence through a boundaries vision. In the days of analogue photographs, Fujifilm stood alongside Kodak of the USA as a leading brand in the photo industry. Foreseeing the steady decline of the analogue business, however, it moved into other business sectors such as pharmaceuticals, health care, and cosmetics as a new departure that it refers to as the “second foundation” and, in so doing, achieved spectacular success. The main objective in its R&amp D strategy for the second foundation was to “create new value.” To do this, Fujifilm sets its sights on achieving what it described as “intellectual fusion” (by combining and integrating different fields and technologies) and “innovation” (by creating new, differentiated technologies) and, as a result, to contribute to society. We will now analyze the mechanism of knowledge convergence through boundaries vision in Fujifilm's R&amp D and new business strategy for supporting its second foundation, which was a key factor in its successful business transformation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley &amp Sons, Ltd.

This paper argues that existing theory on dynamism of product architecture predict architecture shift toward modularity even in the automotive industry that was regarded as integral architecture under some conditions. First, this paper review existing literature on product architecture, and then discusses several reasons why automotive companies are trying to transform the architecture from integral to modular. Finally, this paper raises three main research agenda that have not yet been resolved and clarified in modularity research.

This paper analyses how component manufacturers can change from a customisation to a product platform strategy. This change requires component manufacturers to deal with issues related to the product architecture of the component itself and to the product development process required to sustain the platform strategy. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the change in product strategy of Mabuchi Motors, a specialised DC motor manufacturer that sells DC motors for an average of 50 yen and that has enjoyed long-term stability and high profitability. The process involved in changing product strategy is analysed from two perspectives, the design concept (product architecture) of the DC motor, and its product development process. Academically, this study may contribute to enhancing the quality of product platform strategies by expanding these strategies from end product manufacturers to component manufacturers.

Through research into new product development processes at a precision device maker, this paper discusses the skilful management of knowledge boundaries that lie between various organisations, and between specialised human skills and functions that make up a project organisation, and presents the ways in which new organisational capabilities are brought about for the development of new products as exploratory activities that dynamically merge and integrated the various knowledge within a company. This paper describes some of the implications derived from analysis and observations of the new organisational forms of the company's ambidextrous R&D management which the company uses to engage in both uncertainty management (exploration)' and existing product management (exploitation)', through the partnering of its existing formal organisations and dynamic structuring of diverse multifunctional teams formed as projects spanning different specialisations and capabilities.

This paper presents a theoretical framework under which large companies should be able to bring about strategy transformation. First, we present the concept of strategic innovation capability', a corporate system capability to achieve corporate strategy transformation by strategic innovation. Then, we consider strategic innovation capability by comparing it with previous theories (dynamic capability, major innovation, dynamic capability, breakthrough innovation capability). Second, we present the case example of strategy transformation at Fanuc, a company that holds the top global share in the numerical control (NC) market. In this case study research, we consider and analyze historically how the company aimed for new creativity in the NC market, developed innovative NC technology for the machine tool market, and used that technology energetically for commercialized products. From the strategic innovation capability framework, the core theory of this paper, we also analyze and consider how top management made conscious efforts to form a new development organization within the company, and the processes involved in achieving strategy transformation to establish competitive superiority in this field. Finally, we discuss the implications drawn from this case analysis, and the issues for future research.

Technological transition requires serious management decisions because it essentially means withdrawing from an existing technology, in which the company has been successful, and shifting management resources to a new technology with a high degree of uncertainty. We will analyze in detail an example of a successful transition to a new technology and draw key factors for success. The subject of our analysis is the transition made by Matsushita Electric Group (MEG), a large corporate group representative of Japanese companies, at the time of its commercialization of plasma display panel (PDP) TVs. During commercialization process, Matsushita made a successful transition from accumulated direct current-plasma display panel (DC PDP) to alternating current-plasma display panel (AC PDP) through incorporating AC PDP technology from Plasmaco, Venture Company established in 1987. Key conceptual contributions are as follows. Old and new technology can differ in their knowledge base. According to existing literature, when the knowledge base is radically different, incumbent firms have a difficulty adapting to the technological change. On the other hand, when the knowledge base is very similar, incumbent firms have no trouble adapting to the change. Beyond these established existing understandings, this paper argues that when the knowledge base is moderately different, managers can increase the likelihood of successful transition by implementing a set of organizational strategies. Among these strategies, a particularly insightful one is that through the parallel development process of both existing and new technologies, managers can eventually integrate the advantages of both technologies by implementing a flexible resource allocation mechanism to overcome the dichotomy between old and new through creation of a Ba, Japanese concept offering shared context for knowledge creation.

Companies are faced with the challenge of responding to the emergence of new technologies. To reduce uncertainties, there is an incentive for companies to get involved in a new technology while continuing to use their existing technology until final decisions can be made, a strategy called 'parallel development'. Parallel development is good for companies because it provides more options and defers the need for decision making until uncertainties about the new technology are sufficiently reduced. However, parallel development does not just simply consist of developing new technologies alongside existing ones. Moreover, to date there has not been sufficient research into the management of parallel development. This paper will describe a framework of parallel development for successful technological transition, and then illustrate the effectiveness of parallel development through the successful examples of Fanuc, Ltd., and Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation.

With the advent of new technologies, one successful case of technological transition is Fanuc Ltd., a company that successfully introduced Intel MPUs (Microprocessor Units) to NC (Numerical Control) machines in 1975 and has since continued to achieve sustained growth. This adoption of MPU caused a change in NC architecture. Through an in-depth case study of Fanuc, we show how adopting MPU to an NC system destroys the usefulness of accumulated hard-wired architectural knowledge in that firm due to changes in architecture. We also show how Fanuc developed the new architectural knowledge necessary for MPU-based soft-wired NC systems. This study is not an analysis of the causes of failure, but rather focuses on the aspects of successful management of architectural change. By analyzing and studying a successful case, we can gain valuable insights into managing architectural knowledge. © 2011 Imperial College Press.

Japan's machine tool production was in the top position for 25 years since 1982, but decreased in 2009 by 56.5% from the level in the previous year, lowering the rank to the third and yielding the top position to China. The technical level of the machine tool industry in a country is indicative of its technology base. What happened in the competitiveness of the sector of strategic importance even for its relatively small market? Examination of the official trade statistics up to 2008 permitted to discern the trade structure of machine tools in East Asia and Japan's position in it. It was revealed that Japan has always enjoyed export surplus in this sector, indicating its technological competitiveness intact. The author argue that a coevolution mechanism between the NC equipment and machine tools has been at work as an important factor that supported the development of Japan's machine tool industry.

Technological strategy shift management for smooth transition from the current technology to a new one has become more important than ever for modern businesses. Many foregoing studies on this subject have, however, been concentrated on unsuccessful cases of failure and analyzed causes of the failure: few studies have given detailed analysis of successful technology transition. This paper presents a detailed case study on the strategy shift by Matsushita Electric for the new plasma television business. New propositions are presented on three subjects: (1) who (the top or middle management) starts the process of strategy shift and how; (2) how the relationship of divisions concerned with the new technology in relation to those for conventional technology (boundary management) when development projects based on the two kinds of technology proceed in parallel; and (3) how the old technology is abandoned to complete the shift.

The modularity of products is progressing in many industries. This paper uses a case study to analyze the process of integrating personal computer (PC) and numerical control (NC) machine tools, and conceptualizes as module dynamics the product innovation that works in modular products. Module dynamics refers to the process of product innovation that occur in highest-order modules of modular products and that is achieved through a two-stage process of partitioning and integrating modules. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Almost all of the existing studies on product architecture adopt the research framework of comparing the advantages and disadvantages of modular architecture with those of integral architecture. In this paper, we attempt to propose an evolutionary perspective of product architecture. In order to consider the evolution of a product architecture, we analyze the history of Fanuc numerical controllers regarding the evolution of NC architecture from 1962 to 1997. Then we can derive the following hypotheses concerning the evolution of the product architecture. First, the product architecture basically evolves from the integral architecture to the module architecture, and then in the direction of open architecture. Second, in specific circumstances this change does not always progress in the same direction. When epoch-making technology, such as the microprocessor, is incorporated into the product system the direction of the progress in architecture may be reversed from the module to the integral. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.