Organizational discontinuity appears to be an important contributor to venture success in rapidly changing technological environments. Most Silicon Valley ventures are assemblies of human, technological, and financial resources, and supplier/client relationships with disparate organizational heritage. We analyze ways in which organizational discontinuity, under conditions of high technological uncertainty, contributes to new ventures' competitive advantage and exposes difficulties inherent to simulating venturing within an existing industrial organization. We use a comparative framework to expose the relative abundance of organizational discontinuity in the U.S. high technology sector and identify institutional barriers that stifle it in its Japanese counterpart. Professor Cole is Loraine Tyson Mitchell II Professor of Leadership and Communication at the Haas School of Business. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Sociology. He is the co-director of the Management of Technology Program, a joint venture between the Haas School of Business and the College of Engineering. Professor Cole is a long-term student of things Japanese, having published three books and numerous articles on Japan. Most recently, he published the book, Managing Quality Fads, in 1999 with Oxford University Press, a study of how American industry learned quality improvement practices from the Japanese. This year, he published (with Sage Publications) The Quality Movement and the Organizational Theory, a book co-edited with Richard Scott of Stanford University.

Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and affiliated Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. where he is Director of the Scandinavian Consortium on Organizational Research, and Co-PI, with Nathan Rosenberg, of the KNEXUS Program on the Knowledge Economy.

Professor Powell works in the areas of organization theory and economic sociology. Author of many books and articles, heis most widely known for his contributions to institutional analysis, including a forthcoming edited book, How Institutions Change.

Powell is currently engaged in research on the origins and development of the commercial field of the life sciences. With his collaborator Ken Koput, he has authored a series of papers on the evolving network structure of the biotechnology industry.This line of work continues his interests in networks as a form of governance of economic exchange, first developed in his 1990 article, "Neither Market Nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization," which won the American Sociological Association's Max Weber Prize and has been translated into German and Italian. Powell and Koput and their research collaborators have developed a longitudinal data base that tracks the development of biotechnology worldwide from the 1980s to the present. With Jason Owen-Smith, Powell is studying the role of universities in transferring basic science into commercial development by science-based companies,and the consequences for universities of their growing involvement in commercial enterprises.

The prevailing view in international relations that security alliances are inevitably sustained by mutually perceived threats can be challenged in the present post-Cold War context. It will be argued in this presentation that 'alliance mutuality' can better explain ongoing U.S. security ties with Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand than traditional explanations for alliance politics. Dr. William T. Tow has been teaching with the University of Queensland's Department of Government since 1991. He was previously an Assistant Professor with the University of Southern California's School of International Relations. He has authored or edited ten books and numerous working papers, journal articles and book chapters on East Asian security problems and is completing a book on this issue as it relates to the 'realist/liberal' debate in international relations. He is a member of the Australian Foreign Minister's Foreign Affairs Council, the Australian Members Board of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). In 1995, he co-authored a major study on US security policies in Asia for the IISS and he has consulted for several government agencies in both the United States and Australia. He is a dual Australian/US citizen.

The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) is Pakistan's best reputed and only private management school. Operating within the environment of a government run university system, LUMS has used innovative strategies in marketing, research and consulting to reach its globally renowned status. Wasim Azhar, Dean of LUMS, will present a case study on its strategies. Dr. Wasim Azhar has taught at Wake Forest University, Swarthmore College, Kean University and the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. He has also worked as Marketing Analyst for Exxon Corporation in the USA. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), American Marketing Association, American Production Inventory Control Society (APICS), American Mathematical Association and MENSA. His research interests include issues in business policy, marketing strategy, and negotiation dynamics. Dr. Azhar received his Ph.D. and MSc from the University of Pennsylvania, MBA from Wake Forest University, and MSc from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore.

Nike products, soccer balls, carpets, orange juice, garments, coffee beans--Consumer activists, labor unions and students have launched boycotts and protests against imports that have allegedly been produced by some of the world's 250 million child workers. But exporting countries complain that the vast majority of child workers do not work in export industries, and throwing children out of work in the export sector will not solve the problem. What will really help child laborers? Will globalization help or hurt? Sarah L. Bachman is a visiting scholar at the Asia/Pacific Research Center. She was an editorial writer and reporter for the San Jose Mercury News from 1991-1997. Her work has won or shared awards from the World Hunger Media Awards, the World Affairs Council of Silicon Valley, the Overseas Press Club of America, and InterAction, the consortium of U.S. agencies providing emergency relief. Bachman's series of articles on international child labor (on the web at www.merccenter.com/archives/childlabor) were among the nation's first to point out that well intentioned efforts to end child labor sometimes helped--but also, sometimes harmed thousands of child workers. Her multi-media project - including writing, photography, a school curriculum and two Web sites- explores the benefits and drawbacks of efforts to end child labor.

David W. Brady is a political scientist whose work encompasses American politics and legislative bodies, international political trends, and comparative politics. Brady holds the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy endowed chair at the Graduate School of Business and is a professor of political science in Stanford University's School of Humanities and Sciences. A dedicated and popular teacher, Professor Brady is a past recipient of Stanford's Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Teacher Award, presented for his work with undergraduates, and of the Robert K. Jaedicke Silver Apple Award, presented by the Stanford Business School Alumni Association for his participation in alumni activities.

Brady recently served as an associate dean for academic affairs at the Business School and continues to serve as director of the School's programs in executive education. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and senior fellow by courtesy at the Institute for International Studies, both on campus. David is also co-director of the University's Social Science History Institute and associate director of the University's Public Policy Program. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the advisory council for the Kansai Silicon Valley Venture Forum.

His publications include Change and Continuity in House Elections (eds. with J. Cogan), Stanford University Press (2000), Revolving Gridlock, Westview Press (1998); "Congress in the Era of the Permanent Campaign," Brookings Review, forthcoming 2000; "The Roots of Careerism in the U.S. House of Representatives," Legislative Studies Quarterly, (1999); "The SNTV and the Politics of Electoral Systems in Korea," in Electoral Systems in Asia (University of Michigan Press (1999); "Out of Step, Out of Office: Legislative Voting Behavior and House Election Outcomes," in Change and Continuity in House Elections, Stanford University Press (1999).

Part of the California-Asia Connection Seminar series. California, and the Bay Area in particular, is exercising a defining influence on the global economy. This is based on the state's dominance in key technology sectors, and the capacity for innovation. Dr. Randolph will present research benchmarking the Bay Area economy against comparable regions nationwide, across 35 indicators of performance, and argue that California's global leadership in this domain is sustainable only so long as the host environment nurtures innovation and entrepreneurship. California's trade "policy" is most appropriately understood, therefore, as the rules and regulations governing the state's labor and human capital issues, and the provision of critical infrastructure. R. Sean Randolph was appointed president of the Bay Area Economic Forum on June 1, 1998. The Bay Area Economic Forum, a nonprofit, public-private partnership of business, government, academic, labor, and community leaders works to foster a dynamic and competitive economic environment and to enhance the overall quality of life in the nine-county San Francisco Bay region. Dr. Randolph most recently served as director of international trade for the State of California. As senior manager of the California Trade and Commerce Agency's Office of Export Development, he directed international business development programs that stimulate exports and introduce California companies to key overseas markets. Before joining the State of California, Dr. Randolph served as Managing Director of the RSR Pacific Group, an international business consulting firm specializing in Asia and Latin America. From 1988Ð92 he was International Director General of the Pacific Basin Economic Council, a fifteen-nation international business organization composed of leading U.S., Asian, and Latin American corporations. His professional career also includes extensive experience in the U.S. Government on the U.S. Congress staff (1976Ð80), and the White House staff (1980Ð81). He subsequently served in the U.S. State Department on the Policy Planning Staff as Special Adviser for Policy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and as Deputy/Ambassador-at-Large for Pacific Basin affairs (1981Ð85). From 1985Ð88 he served in the U.S. Department of Energy as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. A graduate (Magna Cum Laude) of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Dr. Randolph holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and studied at the London School of Economics. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the U.S. National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the U.C. Berkeley Center for APEC, the Southwest Center of Environmental Research and Policy, and the Headlands Institute. Dr. Randolph writes and speaks frequently on economic development and international business and economic issues.

S.B. Woo is a physicist and former Lieutenant Governor of Delaware. He was born in Shanghai, China, and came to the United States from Hong Kong at the age of eighteen. He received his B.S., summa cum laude, in mathematics and physics from Georgetown College in Kentucky and his Ph. D. in physics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1964. His other experiences include being trustee of the University of Delaware, an Institute Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. As OCA's (Organization of Chinese Americans) National President in 1991, his vision was to help make the Asian- American an equal partner in the making of the American Dream. After politics, Dr. Woo returned to University of Delaware to teach Physics. He enjoys greatly using the methodology of physics to do research in economics, education and national technology policy. He is currently working on a project called The 80-20 Initiative.

In view of the recent summit between two Korean leaders, Shorenstein APARC believes that the prospect for inter-Korean economic cooperation has improved a great deal. The primary purpose of this conference is to explore various possibilities of inter-Korean economic cooperation as well as to formulate a policy and institutional framework for successfully implementing such cooperative efforts.

The conference will start with an analysis of the current economic situation in the Korean Peninsula and, then, explore sector-specific issues in agriculture, energy, manufacturing and infrastructure. Finally, the conference will draw policy implications for North Korea, South Korea, the United States, and the international community.