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1. Leading Without Followers: How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan's Domestic "Galapagos" ICT Sector

Author:
Kenji E. Kushida
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Despite global leadership by Japanese firms in sectors such as automobiles, precision equipment, and various high tech components, Japanese firms in the telecommunications sector have followed a persistent pattern of leading without followers. While leading the domestic market to ever-high levels of sophistication, sometimes beyond that of most other advanced industrial countries, Japanese ICT companies have retreated dramatically from international telecommunications-related markets. Moreover, in technology after technology, Japanese ICT firms invest heavily, undertake extensive R, and for network technologies, deploy infrastructure rapidly, only to find that global technological trajectories shift in a different direction. While globally successful Japanese industries were able to use their domestic market as a springboard into international markets, Japan's telecommunications sector became decoupled from global markets, trapping Japanese firms in the domestic market.
Topic:
Globalization, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan and Israel

2. Leading Without Followers: the Political Economy of Japan's ICT Sector

Author:
Kenji E. Kushida
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Despite global leadership by Japanese firms in sectors such as automobiles, precision equipment, and various high tech components, Japanese firms in the ICT sector have followed a persistent pattern of leading without followers. While leading the domestic market to ever-high levels of sophistication, sometimes beyond that of most other advanced industrial countries, Japanese ICT companies have retreated dramatically from international markets. Moreover, in technology after technology, Japanese ICT firms invest heavily, undertake extensive R, and for network technologies, deploy infrastructure rapidly, only to find that global technological trajectories shift in a different direction. While globally successful Japanese industries were able to use their domestic market as a springboard into international markets, Japan's ICT sector became decoupled from global markets, trapping Japanese firms in the domestic market.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Japan, Israel, and Asia

3. The Domestic Trap verses the Launchpad: The Political Economies of Wireless Telecommunications in Japan and South Korea

Author:
Kenji Erik Kushida
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The wireless telecommunications markets of Japan and South Korea both developed rapidly, offering extremely sophisticated and advanced wireless services. Yet, their fortunes in international markets diverged significantly - while Japanese firms retreated to become virtual non-players, Korean firms became top global handset manufacturers.
Topic:
Markets and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, and South Korea

4. The Services Transformation and IT Network Regulation

Author:
John Zysman and Kenji Erik Kushida
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
There is currently a fundamental transformation of services, a transformation central to the growth of productivity and competition in the global economy. This transformation, a response to commodification generated by decomposition of production and intensified competition in global markets, is driven by developments in IT tools, the uses they are being put to, and the networks they run on. The service transformation is changing how firms add value, affecting the underlying economic activity in countries around the world.
Topic:
Government and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Japan and South Korea

5. The Political Economies of Wireless in Japan and South Korea: The Politics of Standard-Setting and Liberalization

Author:
Kenji Erik Kushida
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The wireless telecommunications markets of Japan and South Korea both developed rapidly, offering extremely sophisticated and advanced wireless services. Yet, their fortunes in international markets diverged significantly, with Japanese firms retreating from relative success in the 1980s to become virtual non-players, while Korean firms stormed into global handset markets since the late 1990s.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, and South Korea

6. When Innovators and Not Implementers: The Political Economies of VoIP in Japan and the United States

Author:
Kenji Erik Kushida and Masayuki Ogata
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The spread of Two puzzles immediately present themselves when one examines the spread of "Voice over IP" (VoIP, or IP telephony), a technology that sends voice signals as data, which can travel across the Internet.The first is that, despite the technology's widely hailed potential to undermine the core businesses of incumbent telephone operators by circumventing their traditional telephone networks, incumbent operators do not seem to be in imminent danger. When VoIP made headlines in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a dramatically cheaper alternative to conventional telephones, many predicted that new VoIP service providers would seriously threaten, if not cause the sudden demise of, incumbents. Yet, instead of telephone-replacement VoIP services, it was Skype, the online-based service more reliant on one party calling from a computer, which grew rapidly to take center stage. Why did VoIP as a substitute for conventional telephony, despite being hailed as a potentially "disruptive" technology, not have a catastrophic and relatively immediate disruptive effect on incumbent carriers' business models?
Topic:
Political Economy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Asia

7. Understanding South Korea and Japan's Spectacular Broadband Development: Strategic Liberalization of the Telecommunications Sectors

Author:
Seung-Youn Oh and Kenji Kushida
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The ICT sectors of both South Korea and Japan developed rapidly, especially in developing high-speed, low priced broadband services. These networks can potentially provide both economies with new playgrounds for experimentation and innovation. Existing explanations of how these broadband networks and services were created tend to be confused and contradictory regarding 1) the roles played by the states, 2) the exact mechanisms of interaction between governments policies and programs, regulatory frameworks, and market dynamics, and 3) the politics driving each of the state-market interactions.
Topic:
International Political Economy and Markets
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, and South Korea

8. Partners for the China Circle?: The Asian Production Networks of Japanese Electronics Firms

Author:
Dieter Ernst
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The "China fever" that has raged through the Japanese industry over the last few years, has drastically changed the locational patterns of Japanese investment within East Asia. The share of China in the investment of Japanese electronics firms abroad has increased by leaps and bounds: from the measly 0.6% of 1990 ( the year after the Tianmen massacre), it has now reached almost 7%, catching up fast with the 7.7% share of ASEAN.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Israel, East Asia, and Asia

9. Trojan Horse or Boomerang: Two-Tiered Investment in the Asian Auto Complex

Author:
Gregory W. Noble
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The last decade has witnessed a momentous transformation in the political economy of East and Southeast Asia. From the 1950s until the early 1980s transnational production played a limited role in the strategies of Northeast Asian governments and firms. Ubiquitous policies of protection and promotion aimed to increase domestic investment, production and exports. Governments discouraged outward investment through financial controls, particularly over foreign currencies; they limited inward foreign investment to narrowly confined niches, and then often subjected it to onerous restrictions to prevent foreigners from gaining a major foothold in the national economy. The few exceptions involved areas in which domestic production was inadequate: investments in Southeast Asian raw materials and energy; investments by Japanese and Western firms in Korea and Taiwan for some labor-intensive products to be sold in local or third-country markets (but rarely in Japan); and a handful of high-tech investments by Western firms such as IBM which enjoyed such strong patent positions that they could not be forced to license their technology. Since the mid-1980s the combination of rapid currency appreciation, rising costs of labor, land and pollution control in Northeast Asia, and liberalizing economic reforms in Southeast Asia led to a huge surge of direct foreign investment, mainly for the production of labor-intensive manufactured goods. The focal point of Northeast Asian economies shifted from export-led growth based on protected domestic markets to management of regional production networks spread throughout Asia.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Japan, Taiwan, Asia, and Korea