Organizational Diversity, Integration and Performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2008 Vol. 29 No. 3 pp.335-354

Does examination hell pay off ? A cost-benefit analysis of "ronin" and college education in Japan. Economics of Education Review, 2007 Vol.26 No.3 pp.271-284

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College-bound students in Japan undergo a process of intense preparation known as examination hell. An extreme manifestation of examination hell is the ronin phenomenon. Typically 30% of students choose the ronin option under which they spend years in addition to high school preparing for the next year's college entrance examinations. Using the mean scores of the entrance examinations as a measure of college quality, I find that college quality significantly improves the internal rate of return (IRR) to college education among the sample of male graduates in Japan. Ronin increases earnings indirectly by improving the quality of the college attended. I also show that the IRR with respect to ronin is one of diminishing returns. On average, the number of ronin years which maximizes the IRR is found to be somewhere between 1 and 2 years.

Strategic Management as Distributed Practical Wisdom (phronesis). Industrial and Corporate Change 2007 Vol.16 No.3 pp.371-394

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This article claims that effective strategic management requires distributed wisdom (which the philosopher Aristotle called "phronesis"). Strategy is created out of one's existential belief or commitment to a vision of the future, the ability to interpret one's environment and resources subjectively, and the interaction between subjectivity and objectivity. These abilities need to be distributed among organizational members. Strategy as distributed phronesis thus emerges from practice to pursue "common goodness" in each particular situation since a firm is an entity that pursues a universal ideal and a particular reality at the same time. Such idealistic pragmatism means that in a specific and dynamic context knowledge can be created and refined to become wisdom.

Careers in Foreign-Owned Firms in Japan. American Sociological Review, 2007 Vol.72 No.2 pp.267-290

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This article examines how organizational environments affect labor market processes in Japan. I hypothesize that labor market inequality is generated through workers being "positioned" in either domestic or in foreign firms. I apply the concept of social versus economic exchange to distinguish the nature of transactions between domestic and foreign firms. I argue that foreign firms operate under an institutional context that is conducive to the economic mode of exchange, which has enormous consequences for their personnel practices and reward systems. Using a dataset of Japanese workers collected in 2000, I examine the extent to which employment practices in foreign firms deviate from the benchmark features observed in the Japanese labor market. My results confirm that employment in foreign firms significantly affects career outcomes. The highcommitment culture commonly associated with the Japanese workforce is an outcome of the organizational environment. I find little evidence of Japanese employment practices (e.g., seniority and lifetime employment) operating within foreign firms. I also find that workers in foreign firms trust their employers less and have a higher propensity to quit their jobs. My findings suggest that workers in domestic and foreign firms are subject to vastly different sets of institutional constraints.

NTT DoCoMo's launch of I-Mode in the Japanese Mobile Phone Market: A Knowledge Creation Perspective. Journal of Management Studies January 2007 Vol. 44 No. 1 pp.50-72

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While innovation and knowledge creation processes and context are interlinked in the real world, scholars frequently ignore or separate context from knowing due to an entrenched sense of ontological and analytical dualism. This paper builds on the organizational knowledge creation theory (Nonaka, 1994) to provide a holistic view of contextual innovation and knowledge creation processes. The phenomenon is demonstrated by a longitudinal case description of i-mode mobile Internet innovation at NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile communications company. This case explains how three key managers created and organized an interlinked system of shared contexts, called "ba", that enabled the combination and open flow of diverse knowledge and led to the creation and launch of the i-mode mobile Internet, which unites novel technologies and services. Managerial implications and limitations are discussed.

The Toyota way of global knowledge creation the 'learn local, act global' strategy International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management 2007 Vol.7 No.2/3 pp.116-134

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This paper presents insights from two case studies of Toyota Motor Corporation and its way of strategic global knowledge creation. We will show how Toyota's knowledge creation has moved from merely transferring knowledge from Japan to subsidiaries abroad to a focus of creating knowledge in foreign markets by local staff. Toyota's new strategy of 'learn local, act global' for international business development proved successful for tapping rich local knowledge bases, thus ensuring competitive edge. In fact, this strategy finally turned Toyota from simply being a global projector to a truly metanational company.