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5 - Japan: local innovation and diversity in e-commerce

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2009

Kenneth L. Kraemer
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Jason Dedrick
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Nigel P. Melville
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Kevin Zhu
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
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Summary

Introduction

Japan is characterized by a unique industrial landscape, including interlocking networks of firms (keiretsu), a highly interwoven political economy (iron triangle), and a distinctive business culture. The combination of these factors leads to a somewhat insular business environment, as indicated by globalization measures uniformly below the global average of firms in the GEC database. Despite the importance of globalization to innovation, Japan is comparable with other economies along the various e-commerce usage measures contained in the global sample. However, Japan lags far behind in achieving some of the key benefits associated with Internet adoption, such as increased sales and reduced procurement costs. Japan thus illustrates the salience of local factors in the adaptation of new technologies such as e-commerce within national environments. In contrast to the notion of the Internet and e-commerce driving a borderless global economy, Japan illustrates that characteristics of the national economy may be reinforced by the use of the Internet and e-commerce, and not be muted by the global melting pot.

Japanese firms have made great strides in adopting a wide variety of e-commerce technologies. Together with adaptation of proven models such as the Silicon Valley model in Tokyo's Bit Valley, ecommerce emerges as an important, though not necessarily transformational, technology enabling operational efficiencies along industry supply chains. However, the level of information systems spending is modest compared with the average firm in the global sample. This has led to the idea that Japanese companies lag in getting online.

Type
Chapter
Information
Global e-commerce
Impacts of National Environment and Policy
, pp. 173 - 208
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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