With a focus on the digital camera industry, which of all IT devices Japan has high industry competitive advantage, we discuss what product strategy did companies employ to create and capture value as the market developed, and how product architecture has changed. To meet the different needs of...

Product architecture is typically established in the early stages of the product development (PD) cycle. Depending on the type of architecture selected, product design, manufacturing processes, and ultimately supply chain configuration are all significantly affected. Therefore, it is important...

This paper's title is an echo of Alfred Chandler's (2001) chronicle of the electronics industry, Inventing the Electronic Century. The paper attempts (A) a general reinterpretation of the pattern of technological advance in (American) electronics over the twentieth century and (B) a somewhat...

This paper analyzes the modularization in the world auto industry. The modularization in the industry has involved architectural changes in product, production, and supplier systems with each region (Japan, Europe and the U.S.A.) emphasizing different purposes and aspects. As an attempt to...

This paper considers the trade-off between leveraging external sources of innovation by outsourcing design and engineering activities and the ability to develop internal product development competences. The trade-off arises because the division of labor within and across firms' boundaries has a...

This paper examines complementarity among vertical integration decisions in automobile product development. Though most research assumes that contracting choices are independent of each other, contracting complementarity arises when the returns to a single vertical integration decision are...

Focusing on the digital camera industry with high Japanese competitiveness in IT industry, entrants are analyzed in detail as to how growth was achieved after the period of market introduction and particularly from the view of modularization and platform strategies of leading companies. As a...

A point repeatedly stressed by transaction cost economics is that the more specific the asset, the more likely is vertical integration to be optimal. In spite of the profusion of empirical papers supporting this prediction, recent surveys and casual observation suggest that higher levels of...

We explore the nature of Business Groups, that is network-like forms of hierarchical organization between legally autonomous firms spanning both within and across national borders. Exploiting a unique dataset of 270,474 headquarters controlling more than 1,500,000 (domestic and foreign)...