Stanford University

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship in Japan’s ICT Sector: Opportunities and Protection from Japan’s Telecommunications Regulatory Regime Shift

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Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship played a critical role in transforming Japan’s  telecommunications sector. Between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, in a sector long dominated by a stable set of large actors with well-established patterns of interaction, entrepreneurs introduced new technologies, new business models, and new norms of  interaction.

The subsequent transformation of Japan’s telecommunications sector was dramatic, providing consumers with not only fast and sophisticated services but also low prices and an entire new ecosystem of mobile content—a considerable departure from Japan’s long track record of being known as producer- rather than consumer-oriented, with consumers enjoying high-end services and products, but at high prices.

Yet, these transformative entrepreneurs were not acting in a vacuum. Regulatory shifts in telecommunications were critical in providing opportunities for entrepreneurs, while simultaneously protecting them from large incumbent firms. These regulatory shifts were driven by the political dynamics of the 1990s as Japan struggled through its post-bubble economic malaise and political changes.


Philippines Conference Room

Kenji E. Kushida

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Former Research Scholar, Japan Program
kenji_kushida_2.jpg MA, PhD
Kenji E. Kushida was a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2014 through January 2022. Prior to that at APARC, he was a Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies (2011-14) and a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-11).
 
Kushida’s research and projects are focused on the following streams: 1) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of Information Technology such as AI; 2) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, 2) Japan's transforming political economy, 3) Japan's startup ecosystem, 4) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan, 4) Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. He spearheaded the Silicon Valley - New Japan project that brought together large Japanese firms and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem,” "How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan’s Domestic 'Galapagos' Telecommunications Sector," “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).

Kushida has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, Diamond Harvard Business Review, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008).

Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian Studies and BAs in economics and East Asian Studies with Honors, all from Stanford University.
Kenji Kushida Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Speaker Stanford University
Seminars
Information Technology in Japan and Asia
Japan Colloquium Series

Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Japan's Response After the Tohoku Disaster

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Prior to March 11, 2011, many observers had all but written Japan's economy off; after all, it was said, Japan produced only 10 percent of global manufacturing output. Four days later, the world realized that a good portion of that 10 percent sits at a critical upstream spot in the global supply chain, in many products that we not only like (such as the iPad) but also need (e.g., fine chemicals for lithium-ion batteries, silicon wafers, or microcontrollers). In some cases, more than half of global output in critical input materials was located in the Tohoku region. Remarkably, by May 2011, most of the factories not located in the radiation zone had repaired the earthquake damage and resumed operations. 

This presentation explores Japan's role in producing components and materials that are critical in global manufacturing, and then zooms in to analyze the speedy efforts at reconstruction by Japanese business after the Tohoku disaster. It argues that Japan is unlikely to relinquish its leading role in supplying critical components due to this shock, precisely because these "New Japan" companies are competitive, nimble, and fast.

Ulrike Schaede studies Japan’s corporate strategy, business organization, management, financial markets, and regulation. Her book Choose and Focus: Japanese Business Strategies for the 21st Century (Cornell UP, 2008) argues that Japan’s business organization has undergone a strategic inflection so fundamental that our knowledge of Japanese business practices from the 1980s and 1990s is no longer adequate. Her current research looks at “New Japan” companies that have assumed global supply chain leadership in materials and components. She also works on projects regarding corporate restructuring, changing human resource practices, and entrepreneurship in Japan.

Schaede holds an MA from Bonn University, and a PhD from the Philipps-Universtät in Marburg, Germany. She is trilingual and has spent a total of more than eight years of research and study in Japan. She has been a visiting scholar at the research institutes of the Bank of Japan, Japan's Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and at the Development Bank of Japan. Before joining the University of California, San Diego in 1994, Schaede held academic positions in Germany (Philipps-Universtät Marburg) and Japan (Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo), and she was a visiting professor at the business schools of UC Berkeley and Harvard.

Philippines Conference Room

Ulrike Schaede Professor of Japanese Business Speaker University of California, San Diego
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

One Year After Japan’s 3/11 Disaster: Reforming Japan’s Energy Sector, Governance, and Economy

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In the year following Japan’s 3/11 triple disaster of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear incident, fundamental issues in Japan’s political economy are being debated. Potentially major restructuring of Japan’s corporate and political institutional landscape are on the horizon.

Japan’s electricity industry is on the brink of sweeping reform. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), one of the country’s largest firms, faces potential insolvency from the decommissioning of nuclear reactors and reparations. The deregulation and creation of a new regulatory framework for Japan’s electricity markets can potentially stimulate innovation, economic growth, and entrepreneurship. Investment into smart-grids and rebuilding of the Tohoku region provide opportunities as well as risks.

Political institutions are also being reexamined. On the government side, the clear failure of governance structures is fueling a debate for restructuring administration of the power industry. The ineffective political leadership during the crisis is causing a re-examination of how politicians, bureaucrats, and firms deal with contingencies. More broadly, the 3/11 crisis has influenced political dynamics, as criticism of Prime Minister Kan’s government fueled its downfall, and the specter of this disaster will loom over political debates.

This conference brings together leading scholars, influential experts, many of whom hold key positions in the reform process, and highly informed observers of Japan’s post-3/11 adjustments.

Brief Agenda

 

Welcome: Gi-Wook Shin, Stanford University

Session I: Reforming Japan's Energy Industry: In Search of Institutional Change to Promote Innovation

Chair: Masahiko Aoki, Stanford University

Kazuhiko Toyama, Industrial Growth Platform, Inc.
Innovation of the Electric Power Industry in Japan's Post-Fukushima Era

Koichiro Ito, Stanford University
Reforming Japan's Power Industry

Discussant: Frank Wolak, Stanford University
Reforming the Japanese Power Sector: Lessons From Around the World

Lunch

Session II: Political Agendas of Japan's Energy Policy: Opportunities and Constraints

Chair: Daniel Sneider, Stanford University

Keita Nishiyama, Innovation Network of Japan
An Insider's View on Policy Processes and Policy Recommendations for the Japanese Electricity Industry

Steven Vogel, University of California, Berkeley
Japanese Politics After March 2011

Discussants:
Daniel Aldrich, Purdue University
Phillip Lipscy, Stanford University

Session III: The Disaster's Societal Impacts and Visions Moving Forward

Chair: Michael Armacost, Stanford University

Florian Coulmas, German Institute for Japanese Studies
Japan's Societal Reaction to the Disaster

Masahiko Aoki, Stanford University
Prospects for Japan's Industrial Restructuring in the Global Perspective

Discussants:
Takeo Hoshi, University of California, San Diego
Kenji Kushida, Stanford University

Bechtel Conference Center

Gi-Wook Shin Speaker Stanford University

Masahiko Aoki

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Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor of Japanese Studies, Department of Economics, Emeritus
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Senior Fellow at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
2011_MasaAoki2_Web.jpg PhD

Masahiko Aoki was the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies in the Department of Economics, and a senior fellow of the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Aoki was a theoretical and applied economist with a strong interest in institutional and comparative issues. He specialized in the theory of institutions, corporate architecture and governance, and the Japanese and Chinese economies.

His most recent book, Corporations in Evolving Diversity: Cognition, Governance, and Institutions, based on his 2008 Clarendon Lectures, was published in 2010 by Oxford University Press. It identifies a variety of corporate architecture as diverse associational cognitive systems, and discusses their implications to corporate governance, as well their modes of interactions with society, polity, and financial markets within a unified game-theoretic perspective. His previous book, Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis, was published in 2001 by MIT Press. This work developed a conceptual and analytical framework for integrating comparative studies of institutions in economics and other social science disciplines using game-theoretic language. Aoki's research has been also published in the leading journals in economics, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Economic Literature, Industrial and Corporate Change, and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations.

Aoki was the president of the International Economic Association from 2008 to 2011, and is also a former president of the Japanese Economic Association. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the founding editor of the Journal of Japanese and International Economies. He was awarded the Japan Academy Prize in 1990, and the sixth International Schumpeter Prize in 1998. Between 2001 and 2004, Aoki served as the president and chief research officer of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry, an independent administrative institution specializing in public policy research in Japan.

Aoki graduated from the University of Tokyo with a B.A. and an M.A. in economics, and earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1967. He was formerly an assistant professor at Stanford University and Harvard University and served as both an associate and full professor at the University of Kyoto before rejoining the Stanford faculty in 1984.

CV
Masahiko Aoki Speaker Stanford University
Kazuhiko Toyama Speaker Industrial Growth Platform, Inc.
Koichiro Ito Speaker Stanford University
Frank Wolak Speaker Stanford University
Daniel C. Sneider Speaker Stanford University
Keita Nishiyama Speaker Innovation Network of Japan
Steven Vogel Speaker University of California, Berkeley
Daniel Aldrich Speaker Purdue University

Phillip Lipscy

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Former Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Former Assistant Professor of Political Science
phillip_lipscy_2018.jpg PhD

Phillip Y. Lipscy was the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University until August 2019. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international security, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan.

Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations. His research addresses a wide range of substantive topics such as international cooperation, the politics of energy, the politics of financial crises, the use of secrecy in international policy making, and the effect of domestic politics on trade. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy.

Lipscy obtained his PhD in political science at Harvard University. He received his MA in international policy studies and BA in economics and political science at Stanford University. Lipscy has been affiliated with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, the Institute for Global and International Studies at George Washington University, the RAND Corporation, and the Institute for International Policy Studies.

For additional information such as C.V., publications, and working papers, please visit Phillip Lipscy's homepage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phillip Lipscy Speaker Stanford University
Michael H. Armacost Speaker Stanford University
Florian Coulmas Speaker German Institute for Japanese Studies

Takeo Hoshi

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Former Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Former Professor, by courtesy, of Finance at the Graduate School of Business
takeo_hoshi_2018.jpg PhD

Takeo Hoshi was Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), all at Stanford University. He served in these roles until August 2019.

Before he joined Stanford in 2012, he was Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he conducted research and taught since 1988.

Hoshi is also Visiting Scholar at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), and Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). His main research interest includes corporate finance, banking, monetary policy and the Japanese economy.

He received 2015 Japanese Bankers Academic Research Promotion Foundation Award, 2011 Reischauer International Education Award of Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana, 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize of Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha, and 2005 Japan Economic Association-Nakahara Prize.  His book titled Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001) co-authored with Anil Kashyap (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago) received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books in 2002.  Other publications include “Will the U.S. and Europe Avoid a Lost Decade?  Lessons from Japan’s Post Crisis Experience” (Joint with Anil K Kashyap), IMF Economic Review, 2015, “Japan’s Financial Regulatory Responses to the Global Financial Crisis” (Joint with Kimie Harada, Masami Imai, Satoshi Koibuchi, and Ayako Yasuda), Journal of Financial Economic Policy, 2015, “Defying Gravity: Can Japanese sovereign debt continue to increase without a crisis?” (Joint with Takatoshi Ito) Economic Policy, 2014, “Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Eight Lessons from Japan” (with Anil Kashyap), Journal of Financial Economics, 2010, and “Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan” (Joint with Ricardo Caballero and Anil Kashyap), American Economic Review, December 2008.

Hoshi received his B.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.

Former Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
CV
Takeo Hoshi Speaker University of California, San Diego

Kenji E. Kushida

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Former Research Scholar, Japan Program
kenji_kushida_2.jpg MA, PhD
Kenji E. Kushida was a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2014 through January 2022. Prior to that at APARC, he was a Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies (2011-14) and a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-11).
 
Kushida’s research and projects are focused on the following streams: 1) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of Information Technology such as AI; 2) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, 2) Japan's transforming political economy, 3) Japan's startup ecosystem, 4) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan, 4) Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. He spearheaded the Silicon Valley - New Japan project that brought together large Japanese firms and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem,” "How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan’s Domestic 'Galapagos' Telecommunications Sector," “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).

Kushida has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, Diamond Harvard Business Review, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008).

Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian Studies and BAs in economics and East Asian Studies with Honors, all from Stanford University.
Kenji E. Kushida Speaker Stanford University
Conferences
From Crisis to Opportunity: Japan's Post 3-11 Disaster Experience and Energy Reform

Entrepreneurship in Japan’s ICT Sector: Opportunities and Protection from Japan’s Telecommunications Regulatory Regime Shift

Paragraphs

Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship played a critical role in transforming Japan’s telecommunications sector. Between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, in a sector long dominated by a stable set of large actors with well-established patterns of interaction, entrepreneurs introduced new technologies, new business models, and new norms of interaction. The subsequent transformation of Japan’s telecommunications sector was dramatic, providing consumers with not only fast and sophisticated services but also low prices and an entire new ecosystem of mobile content—a considerable departure from Japan’s long track record of being known as producer- rather than consumer-oriented, with consumers enjoying high-end services and products, but at high prices. Yet, these transformative entrepreneurs were not acting in a vacuum. Regulatory shifts in telecommunications were critical in providing opportunities for entrepreneurs, while simultaneously protecting them from large incumbent firms. These regulatory shifts were driven by the political dynamics of the 1990s as Japan struggled through its post-bubble economic malaise and political changes.

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Social Science Japan Journal
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Kenji E. Kushida
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Diffusing the Cloud: Cloud Computing and Implications for Public Policy

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Cloud computing is rapidly emerging as the new information technology platform. It is, however, much more than simply a new set of technologies and business models. Cloud computing is transforming how consumers, companies, and governments store information, how they process that information, and how they utilize computing power. It can be an engine of innovation, a platform for entrepreneurship, and driver of corporate efficiency. While an increasingly commonly term, confusion remains over what exactly constitutes cloud computing, how the markets are unfolding, and what forces will drive their evolution and diffusion. This paper provides an overview and conceptual tools for business leaders, policymakers, and non-specialist scholars to identify, distill, and easily understand the core aspects of how cloud computing service markets are developing, and how an array of policy issues will influence how this new computing platform unfolds across the world.

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Kenji E. Kushida
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Kenji E. Kushida

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Former Research Scholar, Japan Program
kenji_kushida_2.jpg MA, PhD
Kenji E. Kushida was a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2014 through January 2022. Prior to that at APARC, he was a Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies (2011-14) and a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-11).
 
Kushida’s research and projects are focused on the following streams: 1) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of Information Technology such as AI; 2) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, 2) Japan's transforming political economy, 3) Japan's startup ecosystem, 4) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan, 4) Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. He spearheaded the Silicon Valley - New Japan project that brought together large Japanese firms and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem,” "How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan’s Domestic 'Galapagos' Telecommunications Sector," “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).

Kushida has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, Diamond Harvard Business Review, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008).

Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian Studies and BAs in economics and East Asian Studies with Honors, all from Stanford University.
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