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The Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project
Public Forum Series with Networking

Casey Wahl is the CEO and founder of Wahl & Case K.K., a Tokyo-based global recruitment firm with a focus on startups and cross border expansion.  Mr. Wahl has many years of experience in the Japan and is also the founder of Red Brick Ventures, an angel investment and incubation platform.  He recently published a book in Japanese (english version to come), containing the stories of several Japanese entrepreneurs, giving insights into the challenges they face and their journeys to success.  He will be discussion characteristics of the labor market for startups in Japan and how Japanese companies can best hire talent in Silicon Valley.

Thursday, May 14, 2015
4:15 – 5:30 pm Lecture
5:30pm - 6:00pm Networking
Cypress Semiconductor Auditorium (CISX Auditorium)

Public Welcome • Light Refreshments

The Silicon Valley - New Japan Project

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Jaigeun Lim, Seoul Metropolitan Government, "A Study on the Influential Factors on Inbound Foreign Direct Investment and its Implications"

The global importance of Inbound Foreign Direct Investment (IFDI) continues to grow and each nation has made an effort to enhance its national competitiveness through IFDI.  Lim’s research targets 51 nations and 14  candidate variables to learn which factors have an influence on IFDI.

Statistically meaningful variables on IFDI include GDP, economic growth rate, dependency to trade, management of cities, small and medium-sized enterprises’ efficiency and investment incentive policy.  Particularly, the results from Outbound Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI)-oriented nations give evidence that influences of GDP, small and medium-sized enterprises’ efficiency and investment incentive policy are positive to IFDI.  However, Korea shows the lower level of performances in small and medium-sized enterprises’ efficiency and investment incentive policy.  Korea has also shown the lower performances in similar variables compared with other Asia-Pacific nations.  Lim’s research aims to find out what these results mean in terms of policy for Korea?

Ryuichi Ohta, Japan Patent Office, "Relationship Between Technical Standard and Patents"

Samsung and Apple have more than 50 cases of appeals to the courts against each other in more than 10 countries.  In these court battles, Samsung asserted injunction using essential patent which is related to telecommunication standards and committed RAND (Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory) commitment.  Injunction is one of the basic rights for patent, which means Samsung can assert this right.  However in this case, can Samsung assert injunction in spite of RAND commitment?  In normal circumstances, standard organizations require RAND licensing obligations for essential patents.  Ohta will address the question "Why do they require it and why do they consider these obligations are reasonable for essential patents?" through case studies.

Rajeev Prasad, Reliance Life Sciences, "Concept of Total Quality Management in Pharmaceutical Industries"

The pharmaceutical industry is profoundly regulated and the reasons are obvious;  the use of ineffective, poor quality, harmful medicines can result in therapeutic failure, exacerbation of disease, and resistance of medicines and sometimes death of the patients.  Also, the mistakes in product design or production can have severe, even fatal, consequences for patients which sometimes lead to recall of drugs from the market.  Total Quality Management (TQM) acts as an umbrella under which everyone in the organization can strive for customer satisfaction by producing better quality of product, reduce cost and wastage and increase the efficiency of services.  In his research, Rajeev has focused on the failures of TQM principles by evaluating the warning letters, case studies of pharmaceutical manufacturers and product recalls and also outlined about the implementation of robust quality management system by amalgamation of principles of TQM and pharmaceutical regulatory guidelines.

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Zhao Han, PetroChina, "The Development of American Oil Retail – Analysis of the Competitive Strategy in China"

The first gas stations were built in the early 1900s.  Having experienced rapid growth, brand integration, rising costs, model innovation and trans-boundary competition in developed countries like the United States, the gas station industry matured towards the end of the 20th century.  Around the year 2000, international oil companies gradually began to withdraw from the gas station market in developed countries.  During this time, convenience stores became the leader of the market with gasoline being one of the products of the convenience store.

With the development of mobile internet technology and the practice of the big data theory, the information authority has been broken.  The business model of traditional industries, such as the gas station industry, will change as well.  Gas stations will transform from the traditional E-station to E-platform.  In his research, Han argues that the business model of gas stations will turn from merchandise sales to customer service, and then to resource integration and platform management.

Yasunori Matsui, Mitsubishi Corporation, "How to Develop Effective Leadership Skills:  A Study Comparing Silicon Valley Companies"

In most Japanese companies, leadership skills are lacking.  From his experience, Matsui believes this problem exists at a higher level than the organization, as leadership skills are only developed for select people within the organization.  Additionally, he believes there is a high correlation between leadership effectiveness and the results that leaders produce.  Developing an adequate cadre of leaders to perpetuate their organization is essential to Japanese companies.  Unfortunately, the concept of leadership continues to be shrouded in misunderstanding.  In his research, Matsui compares leadership styles in Silicon Valley to those of Japanese companies.  Matsui asks the question as to whether leadership personnel training is possible in Japanese companies and discusses some possible solutions to this problem.

Ryo Wakabayashi, Sumitomo Corporation, "Trends of the American Entertainment Video Industry"

Wakabayashi’s research discusses the entertainment video industry trends in the United States, in particular, the influence of emerging Over-the-Top (OTT) markets in existing entertainment video industry.  Over the past few years, online video streaming services, called “Over-the-Top”, have rapidly become popular and have deprived the subscribers from existing Pay-TV companies.  The reasons why OTT services have taken advantage of existing markets are 1) the infrastructures for their services have drastically improved -- faster internet access speeds and various devices such as smartphones, tablets, and Set-Top-Boxes that are suitable for watching video being released and becoming popular; 2) subscription fees for services are about six times less than the fees for existing Pay TV services like cable TV or satellite TV; and 3) OTT markets have attractive content such as movies, dramas, TV shows, and animated videos and have started producing their own original, high-quality content.  As a result of the growth of the OTT market, Wakabayashi discusses three big trends that are emerging in the video industry in the United States – 1) Video streaming providers are becoming the “New Network”, 2) Large consolidations are emerging and 3) Existing media companies are going toward OTT markets.

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Tsuyoshi Koshikawa, Ministry of Finance, Japan, "Consideration of the Best Practice of Financial Administration – Through a Comparison Between the United States and Japan"

Japan has experienced two big financial crises.  One was the so-called “Non-performing Loan Problem” approximately from 1997 to 2003.  The other was the Global Financial Crisis, especially represented by Lehman Brothers Securities bankruptcy in September 2008 and originally caused by the so-called Subprime Loan Problem that occurred in the United States in the latter part of 2006.  Especially concerning the latter crisis, there have been active discussions among scholars and international organizations and each financial regulator carried out rule-making and policy-making in order to prevent the next crisis.  As a result, for example in the United States, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was established in July 2010.  But even now these discussions have been continuing in G20, Financial Stability Board, Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and so on.  What is the best practice in order to realize trustworthy protection of users and improvement of convenience, which is the biggest issue along with ensuring stability of the financial system?  In his presentation, Koshikawa will introduce recent discussions through a comparison between the United States and Japan and argue implications in the best practice of financial administration.

Changbao Zhang, PetroChina, "Reformation & Improvement of International Human Resource Management of Chinese State-Owned Petroleum Enterprises"

China has the most quantity of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and state-owned property in the world.  Almost every field and industry of the national economy is involved with SOEs.  The implementation of China’s open policy and “going out” strategy are gradually pushing Chinese SOEs into the competition of the global market.  Compared to western companies, the gap in technology is not as big as management, especially in human resources management (HRM) which is influenced by politics, economy, society, history and traditional culture.  Zhang has analyzed and compared the history, current situation and future direction of HRM of Chinese SOEs and that of western companies.  Based on his findings, Zhang proposes suggested solutions focusing on the enterprise micro-level HRM with the case of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Yoshihiro Kaga, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan, "The Roles of University-Industry Collaboration for Promoting Innovation"

The existence of top class universities, especially those ties with industry, is regarded as one of the key characteristics of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, where the most successful innovation-based economic growth in the world is observed today.  Kaga has conducted a literature review of previous research on this topic and research on Stanford organizations facilitating university-industry ties.  Kaga will present his findings and share implications for policies in Japan.  His research is in cooperation with Shingo Nakano.

Feng Lin, ACON Biotechnology, "Innovations in China Primary Healthcare Reform: Development and Characteristics of the Community Health Services in Hangzhou"

One of the five major tasks for China’s health reforms launched in 2009 was to promote the development of a primary healthcare system.  Hangzhou is one of the cities with a long history in China for developing community health services.  Lin has studied the model of community health services in Hangzhou, which is characterized as government-led, guaranteed with enough funding, personnel, space and regulation; supported by a unified information platform; and the assigned central role of general practitioners as health “gatekeepers”.  His data collection and analysis have indicated that the basic health status of residents in Hangzhou is comparable to that in Western developed countries.  Based on these findings, Lin proposes that the primary healthcare level in Hangzhou will be further developed and promoted with the indexed performance evaluations and more effective implementation of additional measures.

Shingo Nakano, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan, "Policy Implications for Increasing the Number of Start-ups in Japan"

As mentioned in “Japan Revitalization Strategy (Revised in 2014),” it is critical for Japan to develop an environment where venture businesses are launched one after another.   The Japanese government has taken some measures to this end, but significant obstacles - such as institutional, human, financial, etc. - remain for venture businesses.  Nakano's research looks at how to eliminate these obstacles, while focusing on increasing the number of start-ups in Japan.  Based on his findings, Nakano will discuss some policy implications for improving the Japanese start-up ecosystem.  His research was conducted in collaboration with Yoshihiro Kaga. 

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Liang Fang, China Sunrain Solar Energy Company, "Comparison of Mobile Internet Innovation between U.S. and China's Internet Companies"

The rapid penetration of smartphones in China has stimulated the innovation in mobile internet and therefore resulted in many new business models.  Today, China is highly developed in some areas like e-commerce, mobile commerce, social media and O2O (offline to online sales) based on the characteristic of China’s online world.  Other factors that are stimulating China’s speed of innovation in mobile internet are 1) economics of scale based on high numbers of users, 2)  a large supply of software engineers and ambitious entrepreneurs, and 3) the government’s encouragement for national innovation.  Fang has applied case-study methods to analyze several of China’s most innovative internet companies and compare them with players in the U.S.  Fang also tracked a few representatives Chinese internet companies which have moved beyond China to enter the U.S. market.  According to his findings, Fang tried to answer the question of “How differently are current Chinese internet companies from their peers in the U.S. in aspects of innovation?” and “How far will Chinese internet companies go beyond the China market with their own innovation?”

Wataru Fukuda, Shizuoka Prefectural Government, "Promotional Strategies and Tactics in the Tourism Market, Focusing on Practices in the U.S."

In 2014, nearly 900,000 Americans visited Japan.  However, only 2-3% of those travelers visited the Shizuoka area, which is located between Tokyo and Kyoto – two of the most favorites areas to visit in Japan.  Shizuoka has the largest number of Japanese Inns (Ryokan), and the fourth largest market share of Japanese travelers.  With the tourism resources and an ideal location, which is frequently accessed from Tokyo and Kyoto, Shizuoka has a huge potential to expand the market share.  In his research, the statistical framework first identified the demographics profile and the characteristics of American travelers to Japan.  Within the luxury market, there is a growing number of affluent millenials who are looking for authentic experiences in their travels.  Fukuda has researched the possibilities of developing an inbound tourism market in Japan, specifically in Shizuoka, learning from practices in the United States.  His research identifies the affluent millenials as specific potential customers for the next decade and investigates the possibilities of the tourism resources in Shizuoka to satisfy their wants and needs.

Ryuichiro Takeshita, The Asahi Shimbun, "Should Human Beings or Computer Algorithms Be the Editors of News? - A Case Study of SmartNews (a Tokyo-based media start-up)"

SmartNews is a Japanese news aggregation app which expanded its service to the United States in 2014. The app is beautifully designed and readers can enjoy a mix of news stories from different publishers such as CNN, NBC News, Wired, Etc.  Instead of human editors deciding which news to put on page one, SmartNews uses computer algorithms to collect and distribute news.  The computer program cannot only analyze social media, but is able to track down how and when people read news.  Therefore, instead of relying on human intuition and experience, it can calculate which article will be most “important” to the mass audience.  Is this a kind of artificial intelligence and a defeat of human knowledge?  Is it using technology to generate collective intelligence?  Takeshita will illustrate the race against machines in the media industry and try to figure out how human beings could build an ideal relationship with machines.

Professor Jaeho Yeom, president of the elite Korea University in Seoul and a Stanford Political Science PhD will examine the historical development, current changes, and future course of East Asian universities. Drawing on his own experience at Korea University, where his initiatives include the "pioneering intellectuals" program to encourage and support student creativity, President Yeom will examine many aspects of higher education, including shifts in educational methodologies, demographics, the pressures of globalization, and changes in government and private funding. 

Professor Jaeho Yeom earned a PhD in political science at Stanford University for his research on Japanese industrial policy for high technology. He has taught public administration at Korea University since 1990. He was Executive Vice President of Korea University before being appointed President in March 2015. President Yeom has also taught or conducted research in Japan, Australia, China, and the United Kingdom. He served as an expert member of the Korean Presidential Commission of Science and Technology Policy and a board member of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. He also served as president of The Korean Association for Policy Studies in 2007 and of The Korean Association for Contemporary Japanese Studies in 2008. Currently, he is chairperson of the Policy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, member of Public Service Evaluation Committee, and Editor in Chief of Asian Research Policy. President Yeom is the author of numerous books and studies, including Future Strategy for Test, Research, and Evaluation of Food and Drug (2011, NIFDS).

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Global Talent seeks to examine the utility of skilled foreigners beyond their human capital value by focusing on their social capital potential, especially their role as transnational bridges between host and home countries. Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University) and Joon Nak Choi (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) build on an emerging stream of research that conceptualizes global labor mobility as a positive-sum game in which countries and businesses benefit from building ties across geographic space, rather than the zero-sum game implied by the "global war for talent" and "brain drain" metaphors.

"Advanced economies like Korea face a growing mismatch between low birth rates and increasing demand for skilled labor. Shin and Choi use original, comprehensive data and a global outlook to provide careful, accessible and persuasive analysis. Their prescriptions for Korea and other economies challenged by high-level labor shortages will amply reward readers of this landmark study."  —Mark Granovetter, Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

The book empirically demonstrates its thesis by examination of the case of Korea: a state archetypical of those that have been embracing economic globalization while facing a demographic crisis—and one where the dominant narrative on the recruitment of skilled foreigners is largely negative. It reveals the unique benefits that foreign students and professionals can provide to Korea, by enhancing Korean firms' competitiveness in the global marketplace and by generating new jobs for Korean citizens rather than taking them away. As this research and its key findings are relevant to other advanced societies that seek to utilize skilled foreigners for economic development, the arguments made in this book offer insights that extend well beyond the Korean experience.

Books will be available for purchase at the event or  purchase online

Gi-Wook Shin is the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies; the founding director of the Korea Program; a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and a professor of sociology, all at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations.

Shin is the author/editor of more than a dozen books and numerous articles. His recent books include Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015), Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); Asia’s Middle Powers? (2013); Troubled Transition: North Korea's Politics, Economy, and External Relations (2013); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia (2006); and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many of them have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic journals including American Journal of Sociology, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, and Asian Survey. Shin is currently writing a book on historical memories of the Asia-Pacific wars with Daniel Sneider. 

Joon Nak Choi is an associate professor in the Department of Management at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Prior to joining HKUST, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He earned his Ph.D and M.A in Sociology at Stanford  University and his B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Brown University. His ongoing research continues to focus upon the effects of social and political capital, especially in Korea.

Hwy-Chang Moon joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for the 2015-2016 academic year. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Moon will be working on a research project titled, “The Global Strategy of Korean Firms in Silicon Valley.”

Moon received his PhD from the University of Washington and is currently a professor of international business strategy in the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University in South Korea, where he also served as the Dean. He has previously taught at the University of Washington, University of the Pacific, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Helsinki School of Economics, Keio University, and Hitotsubashi University. Moon has also consulted for several multinational companies, international organizations, and governments (e.g., Malaysia, Dubai, Azerbaijan, and the Guangdong Province of China).