Stanford University

Innovation

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? Political Change (and Non-Change) and the Future of Japanese Business

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This event is presented in conjunction with the Japan Society of Northern California.

About the talk

After five years of sweeping changes during the Koizumi administration (2001-06), Japan has slipped into a period of political stagnation.  

The ruling LDP is in disarray and facing the prospect of defeat in the next general election, partisan conflict is slowing the pace of policy innovation, and past reforms have been partially unraveled in response to demands from both the public at large and vested interests.  

This lecture explores the past decade of political change and backtracking in Japan and their implications for innovation and entrepreneurship in the business community, paying particular attention to the ongoing process of postal privatization and other instances of “structural reform.”

About the speaker

Patricia Maclachlan is Associate Professor of Government and Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.  She received her Ph.D in political science and Japan studies in 1996 from Columbia University and spent one year as a research associate in the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University. Her research interests include consumer politics and culture in advanced industrial democracies, with a focus on Japan.

Professor Maclachlan is the author of Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Advocacy (NY: Columbia University Press, 2002), and a co-editor and contributing author to The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). She has also written several articles and book chapters on consumer-related issues in Japan and the West, Japanese civil society, and on Japanese postal reform. She is now completing a book on the history and politics of the Japanese postal system.

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Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Patricia MacLachlan Professor of Asian Studies Speaker University of Texas, Austin
Seminars
Entrepreneurship in Japan: New Patterns After Post-Bubble Reforms
Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE)

Entrepreneurship as a National Security Initiative

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This event is presented in conjunction with the Japan Society of Northern California and the US-Asia Technology Management Center.

About the event

In recent remarks, President Obama has clearly linked our success at stimulating economic dynamism and science-based innovation abroad and our ability to clip the root causes of terrorism. The entrepreneur's optimistic vision is polar opposite of the terrorist's dark pessimism. By helping to grow entrepreneurial ecosystems abroad and link those ecosystems with their U.S. counterparts, we both fertilize broad-based future economic growth and strengthen a sense of self-determination, both potent antibodies to terrorist recruiters. This panel discussion will explore this concept.

About the speakers

Richard C. Boly is a national security affairs fellow for 2008-2009 at the Hoover Institution. Mr. Boly represents the U.S. Department of State.

Richard is a career member of the United States Foreign Service. He was an Economic Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy from 2004-2008 and worked in the office of European Union affairs at the State Department from 2002-2004. His other overseas tours include the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Richard is the most junior diplomat to win the Cobb Award for commercial diplomacy. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Richard was the first Presidential Management Fellow with the Inter-American Foundation, was a consultant with the Inter-American Development Bank, and founded and ran a shrimp hatchery in coastal Ecuador. Richard is a native of Tacoma, Washington and a graduate of Stanford University and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He plans to use his fellowship year to focus on promoting entrepreneurship abroad as a U.S. policy objective.

Richard Dasher has been with the US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University since 1993, becoming USATMC Acting Director in 1994 and Director in 1996. In this capacity, Dr. Dasher holds consulting faculty appointments in the Department of Electrical Engineering (technology management) and the Department of Asian Languages (Japanese business), moving up from Consulting Associate Professor (1996 - 2003) to Consulting Professor since 2004. He has additionally served as Executive Director of Stanford's Center for Integrated Systems since 1998.

Dr. Dasher was the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the senior governance of a Japanese national university, serving a one-year term on the Board of Directors of Tohoku University from April 2004. He continues to serve on the Management Steering Council of Tohoku University and as Special Advisor to the Tohoku University president. From 2001-2003, he was a member of the International Advisory Committee to the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the creation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. He is regularly called on to consult for local and regional governments in Japan, the U.S. and Asia in regard to innovation-based regional economic development and university-industry relations.

Dr. Dasher maintains an active business consulting practice on international strategy and planning, technology trend and opportunity analysis, and Japan market entry and performance improvement. In addition to projects for large firms, he serves as an outside board director of ZyCube Inc. in Japan and as advisor to several start-up companies in the U.S. and China. Since 2000, Dr. Dasher has been an advisor to the US-Japan Business Incubation Center in San Jose, California.

Dr. Dasher received the Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford University and is co-author with Prof. Elizabeth Traugott of the book "Regularity in Semantic Change" (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He is fluent in Japanese and directed the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute training centers in Japan and Korea from 1986-90. From 1990-93, Dr. Dasher was a salaried board director of two Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he expanded the companies' business lines to include international IP licensing. He taught clarinet and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1978-85 and maintains an active interest in performing and enjoying music.

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Philippines Conference Room

Richard C. Boly Fellow Panelist Hoover Institution

Richard Dasher

U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center
School of Engineering
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-0096 (650) 725-9974
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Consulting Professor
richard-lg0001-200x300.jpg PhD

At Stanford University, Dr. Dasher has directed the US-Asia Technology Management Center since 1994, and he has been Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems since 1998. He holds Consulting Professor appointments at Stanford in the Departments of Electrical Engineering (technology management), Asian Languages and Cultures (Japanese business), and at the Asia-Pacific Research Center for his work with the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also faculty adviser to student-run organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society and the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford.

From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term as a Board Director (理事) of Tohoku University . He continued as a member of the Management Council (経営協議会) until March 2010, and he now serves as Senior Advisor to the President (総長顧問) of Tohoku University. Dr. Dasher has been a member of the high-profile Program Committee of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) since 2007. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee of the C$500 million Canada Foundation for Innovation Leading Edge Fund in 2007 and again in 2010, and as a member of the Phase I and Phase II Review Panels of the C$200 million Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program in 2008 and again in 2010. He was a distinguished reviewer of the Hong Kong S.A.R. study on innovation in 2008–09, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Foresight Panel of the German Ministry of Education and Research. From 2001–03, Dr. Dasher was on the International Planning Committee advising the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the formation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

As allowed by Stanford policy, Dr. Dasher maintains an active management consulting practice, through which he is an advisor to start-up companies and large firms in the U.S., Japan, and China. He has been a board director of Tokyo-based ZyCube Inc. since 2006, and he is founder and chairman of Pearl Executive Shuttle in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. In the non-profit sector, he is a Board Director of the Japan Society of Northern California and the Keizai Society U.S. – Japan Business Forum, and he is an advisor to organizations such as the Chinese Information and Networking Association, the Silicon Valley – China Wireless Technology Association, and the International Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology (iFEST). In 2010 he served as a consultant to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in regard to their establishment of a worldwide remote mentoring program for entrepreneurs. Dr. Dasher frequently gives speeches and seminars throughout Japan and Asia, as well as in the U.S. Recent appearances include the Nikkei Shimbun Business Innovation Forum, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, speaking tours of Japan co-sponsored by METI and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and guest lectures at Chubu University, Kochi University of Technology, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the University of Tokyo.

From 1990–93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two privately-held Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986–90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced field schools in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time language and area training to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and, along with Prof. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, he is co-author of the often-cited book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he served on the faculty from 1978-85.

Richard Dasher Panelist
Seminars
Entrepreneurship in Japan: New Patterns After Post-Bubble Reforms
Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE)

Co-ordinating Counterterrorism: Organizational Routines in the United States, France and Britain

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Frank Foley, a 2008-09 Zukerman Fellow, is a postdoctoral student in international security at CISAC. His research concerns counterterrorist policy and operations, the reform of intelligence and police agencies and the increasing role of judicial and prosecutorial actors in the field of security. His PhD dissertation, currently under revision for publication, is a comparative analysis of British and French counterterrorist policies, which argues that western states' different institutional characteristics and norms in the field of security are shaping their responses to Islamist terrorism, leading to divergent approaches to a common problem. At CISAC, Frank is analyzing the co-ordination of counterterrorist agencies within the United States, France and Britain, drawing on organization theory to explain why some countries achieve higher levels of inter-agency co-operation than others. He has also written on European Union security policy and on terrorism and community conflict in Northern Ireland. Upcoming projects include a review of the terrorism and counterterrorism literature for the International Studies Association's Compendium Project and an analysis of the forces shaping international co-operation on counterterrorism at both the diplomatic and operational levels.

Frank received his PhD from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and is a graduate of the University of Cambridge (MPhil) and University College Cork (BA, MA). He worked as a journalist in Brussels and as a researcher in Northern Ireland between 2001 and 2004.

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1974 to 2007. Her current research focuses on innovation in terrorist campaigns, the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, why the United States is the target of terrorism, and the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies.

She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes "Terrorism, Strategies, and Grand Strategies," in Attacking Terrorism (Georgetown University Press), "Terrorism and Global Security," in Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (United States Institute of Peace Press), and "Explaining Suicide Terrorism: A Review Essay," in the journal Security Studies. She is also the editor of a projected volume, The Consequences of Counterterrorist Policies in Democracies, for the Russell Sage Foundation in New York.

She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chaired the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism. She has also served on the Council of the APSA and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She is a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005-2006. She served on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. She was a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City for 2006-2007.

If you would like to be added to the email announcement list, please visit https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/socialscienceseminar 

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Frank Foley CISAC Postdoctoral Zukerman Fellow; PhD, Political Science and Social Sciences, European University Institute Speaker
Martha Crenshaw Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and Senior Fellow at CISAC and FSI Commentator
Seminars

Capitalizing On Innovation: The Case of Japan

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Japan's industrial landscape is characterized by hierarchical forms of industry organization that are increasingly inadequate in modern sectors, where innovation relies on platforms and horizontal ecosystems of firms producing complementary products. Using three case studies--software, animation and mobile telephony--two key sources of inefficiencies that this mismatch can create will be illustrated.

First, hierarchical industry organizations can "lock out" certain types of innovation indefinitely by perpetuating established business practices. Second, even when the vertical hierarchies produce highly innovative sectors in the domestic market, the exclusively domestic orientation of the "hierarchical industry leaders" can entail large missed opportunities for other members of the ecosystem, who are unable to fully exploit their potential in global markets.

Dr. Hagiu will argue that Japan has to adopt several key measures in order to address these inefficiencies and capitalize on its innovation: strengthening antitrust and intellectual property rights enforcement; improving the legal infrastructure (e.g. producing more business law attorneys); lowering barriers to entry for foreign investment and facilitating the development of the venture capital sector.

Andrei Hagiu is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy group at Harvard Business School. His research focuses on multi-sided markets, which feature platforms serving two or more distinct groups of customers, who value each other's participation. He is studying the business strategies used by such platforms and the structure of the industries in which they operate: payment systems, advertising supported media, personal computers, videogames, mobile devices, shopping malls, etc. Hagiu is using the insights derived from this research to advise a wide range of companies in all of these industries.

In addition, he is also involved in competition and industrial policy research and advisory projects, in Japan, China and in the United States. He graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et Adminstration Economique in France with an MS in economics and statistics, before obtaining a PhD in economics from Princeton University in 2004. Prior to joining HBS, he spent 18 months in Tokyo as a fellow at the Research Institute of Economy Trade and Industry, an economic policy think-tank affiliated with the Japanese Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry.

This event is presented in conjunction with the Japan Society of Northern California.

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Philippines Conference Room

Andrei Hagiu Assistant Professor, Strategy Unit Speaker Harvard Business School
Seminars
Entrepreneurship in Japan: New Patterns After Post-Bubble Reforms
Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE)

Richard Dasher

U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center
School of Engineering
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-0096 (650) 725-9974
0
Consulting Professor
richard-lg0001-200x300.jpg PhD

At Stanford University, Dr. Dasher has directed the US-Asia Technology Management Center since 1994, and he has been Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems since 1998. He holds Consulting Professor appointments at Stanford in the Departments of Electrical Engineering (technology management), Asian Languages and Cultures (Japanese business), and at the Asia-Pacific Research Center for his work with the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also faculty adviser to student-run organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society and the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford.

From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term as a Board Director (理事) of Tohoku University . He continued as a member of the Management Council (経営協議会) until March 2010, and he now serves as Senior Advisor to the President (総長顧問) of Tohoku University. Dr. Dasher has been a member of the high-profile Program Committee of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) since 2007. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee of the C$500 million Canada Foundation for Innovation Leading Edge Fund in 2007 and again in 2010, and as a member of the Phase I and Phase II Review Panels of the C$200 million Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program in 2008 and again in 2010. He was a distinguished reviewer of the Hong Kong S.A.R. study on innovation in 2008–09, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Foresight Panel of the German Ministry of Education and Research. From 2001–03, Dr. Dasher was on the International Planning Committee advising the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the formation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

As allowed by Stanford policy, Dr. Dasher maintains an active management consulting practice, through which he is an advisor to start-up companies and large firms in the U.S., Japan, and China. He has been a board director of Tokyo-based ZyCube Inc. since 2006, and he is founder and chairman of Pearl Executive Shuttle in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. In the non-profit sector, he is a Board Director of the Japan Society of Northern California and the Keizai Society U.S. – Japan Business Forum, and he is an advisor to organizations such as the Chinese Information and Networking Association, the Silicon Valley – China Wireless Technology Association, and the International Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology (iFEST). In 2010 he served as a consultant to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in regard to their establishment of a worldwide remote mentoring program for entrepreneurs. Dr. Dasher frequently gives speeches and seminars throughout Japan and Asia, as well as in the U.S. Recent appearances include the Nikkei Shimbun Business Innovation Forum, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, speaking tours of Japan co-sponsored by METI and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and guest lectures at Chubu University, Kochi University of Technology, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the University of Tokyo.

From 1990–93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two privately-held Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986–90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced field schools in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time language and area training to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and, along with Prof. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, he is co-author of the often-cited book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he served on the faculty from 1978-85.

Victor to teach political economy of energy class again this winter

Authors
David G. Victor
News Type
News
Date
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PESD Director David G. Victor will be teaching "The Political Economy of Energy Policy" in the upcoming winter quarter. The class will introduce students to the major theoretical frameworks used by political scientists, sociologists, economists, and other intellectual disciplines to understand how societies design and implement public policies related to energy, and how the energy industry responds. Topics covered will include theories of the state, monopoly and regulation, public choice, organizational behavior, international agreements, and innovation.  The class will apply these theories to major current and historical issues in energy policy, such as ethanol, climate change, energy security, the role of national oil companies in the world oil market, the functioning of OPEC, and the California electricity crisis.

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The New Japan: Recent Transformations in Japanese Business Strategies

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Professor Schaede's seminar will focus on the themes of her new book, Choose and Focus: Japanese Business Strategies for the 21st Century (Cornell UP, 2008). She will argue that Japan has undergone a strategic inflection point so fundamental that relying on what we used to know about Japan from the 1980s is insufficient to understand the new Japanese competitiveness.

In addition to analyzing this recent shift away from diversification to focused, lean organizations among Japan's leading companies, Professor Schaede will also discuss the newly emerging takeover market in Japan, as well as the changing role of venture capital and startups in Japan's newly emerging open system of innovation.

Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at UC San Diego's School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. Schaede has written extensively on business organization and the financial system in Japan. Her recent working papers discuss changes in business groups and Japan's main bank system; investment funds, institutional investors and hostile takeovers; legal reform and "revitalization", as well as changing employment strategies and non-regular work. She is also an investigator for SPRIE's Japanese Entrepreneurship project.

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Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Ulrike Schaede Professor of Japanese Business Speaker UC San Diego's School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
Seminars
Entrepreneurship in Japan: New Patterns After Post-Bubble Reforms
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