Venture Review

VENTURE REVIEW No.23

Case Study

Yasuhiro Ueno/Hiroki Kitayama

The Effect of Business School on Entrepreneurship

To sustain a competitive advantage, it is necessary to develop new business, both building upon and moving beyond the core business. Innovation creates new business, and such innovation is carried out by entrepreneurs.
This paper investigates the entrepreneurship education offered by business schools, and presents a case study of corporate venturing by a retailer of electronic equipment in Japan. The CEO of this company entered business school with the aim of learning how to grow his company. For his thesis he wrote about corporate venturing, earning a Master of Business Administration degree and gaining an awareness of new business opportunities. During this process, he was able to develop new business by drawing on the advice and constructive comments of his business school supervisor and classmates. Also, for his business he developed many connections, some strong and some weak. Such connections helped to provide informational diversity and to foster a mental commitment to his business.
A business school education can provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs to enhance their present abilities. In particular, students strengthen their entrepreneurship through seminar work at school. This paper discusses possible methods of entrepreneurship education in business school.

Key words:Entrepreneurship, Network, Logical Thinking, Corporate Venturing, MBA

Katsuhiko Iwasaki

Entrepreneurship of the Long-established Onsen-Ryokan and Revitalization of Hot Spring Resort Area

When we investigate the conditions under which the long-established onsen-ryokan, Japanese style hot-sprig inn, has survived, we can find the various types of business development models. Ogoto onsen area, which we take up in this paper, has been sluggish under the burden of past negative images accompanied by the temporary boom of amusement business in this district in 1970s. Two owners of onsen-ryokan, who succeeded their business in those days, have felt a sense of crisis to the situation at that time, and progressed the changes to break down the conventional customs and traditions as local entrepreneurs. At the same time, they exerted themselves to train the young successors of the next generation, and focused on their own team- building. They become now the new owners of onsen-ryokan and challenge to the local revitalization as the main entrepreneurs under the strong solidarity.

Key words:long-established onsen-ryokan, succession of the business, entrepreneurship, revitalization

VENTURE REVIEW No.24

Article

Mitsutoshi Furuya/Hironori Higashide

Transition of Internal Communication Practices to Increase Employees’ Satisfaction in Accordance with the Organizational Development

This article discusses the importance of employees' internal communication satisfaction ("ICS") on the organizational development. Internal communication ("IC"), or organizational communication, has not been empirically researched in relation to ICS, organizational communication practices ("Practices") and organizational development in Japan. This is the originality of this article.
The author proposed a model to manage IC effectively for the successful organizational development in the course of venture growth. The model explains how Practices as well as top management consciousness in communication ("Consciousness") impact on the employees' ICS. As previous researches showed ICS impacted on positive factors for growth, such as job satisfaction ("JS"), the model integrates the Consciousness, the Practices, ICS and the factors for growth.
Qualitative researches were conducted through 12 cases of small, medium and large sized venture companies in Japan (theoretical samples), which employee numbers are 30 to 3000 in various industries. Semi-structured interviews with top management and middle managers were conducted, in order to explore the Consciousness and the Practices for successful organizational development. Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire ("CSQ") was utilized as a measurement instrument of ICS, which reliability and validity have been confirmed by various past empirical researches mainly in U.S.A.
As the result, successful venture companies showed high ICS scores owing to various Practices to increase ICS under the initiative of top management. The Consciousness and the Practices impacted on OP (Organizational Perspective), CC (Communication Climate), MQ (Media Quality) and HC (Horizontal Communication). RC (Recruiting Communication), 9th dimension of ICS was also identified in this research. With limitations, the author showed the future research area and practical utilization of IC, which may enhance and affirm organizational development of the venture growth in various stages.

Key words:IC, ICS, Job Satisfaction, CSQ, Organizational development

Haruomi Shindo/Futoshi Akiba

An Empirical Study on Outside Resource Based Corporate Venturing

The purpose of this research is to set up the hypothesis about the outside resource based corporate venturing (CV) conducted by Japanese venture enterprises. Specifically, we analyze the related companies created by the umbrella organization and the change of the segments.
In order to verify the above issues, we conducted a case study about SoftBank Corp. Group. Especially, we make the databases on business segments, related companies and investments of the group. The databases are used for analysis by networking software "Pajek".
In this study, the followings are the findings regarding the outside resource based CV by Japanese venture enterprises. (1) The frame work of the outside resource based CV is constructed by (a) context (strategic and economic), (b) characteristics of CV (resource transfer and investment approach), and (c) outcomes (strategic and economic). (2) The formation of outside resource based CV, conducted by Japanese venture enterprises, should be called "Type-F (Fund) organization". At the kind of organization, most of segments are replaced in the short term, like an investment fund.
There are limitations of this paper. (1) The single case study is not enough to generalize the conclusion. (2) The effect of internal corporate venturing is not researched. In order to challenge the limitation, a variety of research methods should be adopted.

Key words:Corporate Venturing, Type F Organization, Corporate Venture Capital Investment, M&A, SoftBank Corp.

Case Study

Satoshi Yamamoto/Takashi Natori

An Exploratory Analysis on Internationalizaion Process of Japanese SME Manufacturers from the Viewpoints of IEO, EMO and LO

 The purpose of this paper is to explore the internationalization process of Japanese SME manufacturers with case studies. Japanese SME manufacturers had depended on the domestic large companies under subcontract relationship. This means that managerial activities of Japanese SME manufacturers have been restricted to Japanese domestic market. However, due to the global competition, they faced the oversea shift of their domestic customers. Thus, currently, some of them are strongly required to enter foreign market for their business continuity. On the contrary, the internationalization process of Japanese SMEs manufacturers remains poorly understood. Therefore, in this paper, we tackle this puzzle with exploratory approach from the viewpoints of some entrepreneurial concepts.
 In Yamamoto and Natori (2014), we focus on international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) as the driving force to accelate internationalization of SME manufacturers. Top-managers in some of Japanese SME manufacturers have formed and increased IEO, building social network and appropriate organizational structure and made it possible to enter foreign market. Based on these findings, we built the hypothetical viewpoints to analyze the internationzaliton process of Japanese SME manufacturers.
 We theoritically attempt to extend the above hypothetical viewpoints, utilizing other entrepreneurial concepts such as export market orientation(EMO), and learning orientation(LO).EMO and LO are driven by IEO and directly related to the entrepreneurial behavours to enter foreign market. Especially, we focus on the" Market Information Collection " as the entrepreneurial bahaviour with MEO and LO. Based on our case studies, it is shown that top-managers directly visit foreign market and customers to collect market information. Additionally, they built the appropriate organizational structure to utilize those information. From those new findings, we showed the theoritical model of internationalization process of Japanese SME manufacturers.

Key words:SME manufacturers, Internationalization, IEO, EMO, LO, Market Information Collection

Research Data

Akihiko Fukunaga

The Management of “Community Promoting” Organization

Community promotion is one of the urgent issues of Japan. One of the key points for success in community promotion is the managing ability of the organizations which take the initiative in community promotion activities. There are
several successful cases of organizations which can be called as "Community Promoting Organization" took the initiatives in these activities. One of the cases is the case of Oarai Creative Management Co. Ltd, which is a social entrepreneurship created by local enterprises for the development of Oarai Town, Ibaraki Prefecture and promoting tourism in the area.
Recently, the case of promoting tourism linking with animated cartoon in Oarai became famous, and Oarai Creative Management Co. Ltd took the initiative in these activities. In this study, I will analyze the management and the capabilities of Oarai Creative Management and point out the key factors which led the success of this promotion. As a result, not
only the capability of Oarai Creative Management was crucial for the success but also trustful relationship between Oarai Creative Management and outsiders was crucial. The reason for Oarai Creative Management can develop such relationship is due to its emphasis on its core ideology of the firm which sees the development of Oarai its top priority and aggressiveness for new activities.

Key words:Community Promoting Organization, Social Entrepreneurship, Organizational Capability, Trustful Relationship, Core Ideology of the Firm

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