روند همگرایی تلاش های نوآوری در شرکت های با فن آوری پیشرفته تحت پارادایم تغییر؛ یک مورد از ماشین آلات الکتریکی ژاپن

Japan's electrical machinery firms are typical high technology firms and have been playing a leading role in Japan's economic development. This is primarily due to the large amount of R&D investment motivated by technoprenuership leading to high level of technology stock. However, such a high level of technology stock has dichotomized the firms resulting in the converging trend over the last two decades. This converging trend can be attributed to the contrasting performance between gigantic and follower firms. While challenges to new functionality development in the gigantic firms were impeded by organizational inertia, the follower firms could overcome such impediments so as to lead to active development of new functionalities. Furthermore, higher functionality development of the follower firms guarantees them successfully securing their R&D funds by shifting from their operating income to market place; lower functionality development of the gigantic firms with strong organizational inertia impedes such a shift. In order to demonstrate the foregoing hypothetical view and also to elucidate the structural sources compelling the firms to such contrasting performance, an empirical analysis is attempted taking Japan's leading electrical machinery firms by classifying into gigantic and follower groups. By means of a comparative analysis of development trajectories of these firms utilizing bi-logistic growth model, the sources of such convergence are identified leading to implications supportive to survival strategies of high technology firms amidst megacompetition.

Under increasing global megacompetition, Japan's electrical machinery firms have expanded their investments in R&D not only to secure the predominated technological position but also to challenge new technological opportunities. These increased R&D investments have enabled the firms to maintain sustainable growth by increasing their technology stock1despite the rapid obsolescence of technology. However, looking at the behavior of each respective leading firm carefully, we note that the growth rates of R&D investment of gigantic and follower firms differ significantly. Contrary to the remarkable growth rate of the R&D investment in the follower firms, that of the gigantic firms has been relatively low over the last two decades. These contrasting trends resulted in the convergence with respect to the technological level of the electrical machinery firms. Fig. 1 illustrates the trend in the variance of the relative technology stock of 24 Japan's leading electrical machinery firms.2 Trend in the variance and the entropy of relative technology stock in 24 Japan's leading electrical machinery industry. The relative technology stock is the share of a firm's technology stock in the total technology stock of the industry. Figure options Looking at Fig. 1, we note that the variance of the relative technology stock has continued to decline during the period examined. Fig. 1 also illustrates that the trend in the entropy3 of the same stock has increased. These trends, both of variance and entropy, imply that the technology stock of the 24 Japan's leading electrical machinery firms has converged over the last two decades. In addition, trends in technology stock of the 24 firms illustrated in Fig. 2 demonstrate that there are distinctive technology gap among firms in Japan's electrical machinery industry.

Prompted by the observation that the technology stock of Japan’s electrical machinery firms have converged over the last two decades, this paper attempted to demonstrate the hypothetical view that this converging trend can be attributed to the contrasting performance between gigantic and follower firms, and also elucidate the structural sources compelling the firms to such convergence. By means of regression analyses based on logistic models, it is demonstrated that the follower firms have succeeded in creating new functionalities successively and developing new trajectories over the period 1980–1998 while the gigantic firms could not succeed due to their organizational inertia. Although it is not quite clear to estimate the timing of shifting to new development trajectories of the follower firms, the follower firms demonstrated bi-logistic growth patterns which enabled them to maintain a high level marginal productivity of technology during the paradigm shift from an industrial society in the 1980s to an information society that emerged in the 1990s. Noteworthy findings obtained through these analyses include: (i) The convergence of the technology stock was attributed to the contrasting performance of the gigantic firms and the follower firms in creating new functionalities. (ii) The follower firms have succeeded in shifting R&D funds from their internal sources to market place so as to create new functionalities leading to high level of marginal productivity of technology which resulted in the increase in their sales and technology stock during the paradigm shift from an industrial society to an information society. (iii) Impeded by the organizational inertia, the gigantic firms were less successful in developing new functionalities than the follower firms and resulting in lower marginal productivity of technology that further decelerated their growthof sales and technology stock. (iv) This dichotomization can be attributed to the deceleration effect of sales growthto the functionality development and its subsequent impact on the level of marginal productivity of technology. These findings suggest that R&D funds play a significant role in the process of Japan’s electrical machinery firms’ development. Facing the paradigm shift from an industrial society to an information society, it becomes difficult for firms to secure their R&D funds by depending solely on their internal resources based on their operating income. Thus, there is only a choice for firms to secure their R&D funds by shifting from internal resources to the resources in the market place. While higher functionality development of the follower firms guarantees them to successfully accelerate such a shift, lower functionality development of the gigantic firms due to their strong organizational inertia impeded such a shift. In addition, it has been demonstrated that a virtuous cycle between new functionality development, technology stock and economic performance is crucial for the survival of hitechnology firms in the new paradigm. Furthermore, it is suggested that a shift from the growth trajectory to new functionality development trajectory is indispensable for hitechnology firms. Therefore, they should make every effort to reshape to it an agile, adaptive, flexible and cooperative structure, rather than seeking for the development of the size. Further works should focus on the application of new methodology developed in this analysis to other sectors as well as the international comparison thereby extracting further policy implications with respect to the factors governing the dichotomization depending on institutional systems.