Japan's Innovative Technology Strategies

In Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Lessons from Japan Christopher Freeman highlights "innovation and the diffusion of innovations" (1). Freeman charts how pervasive changes in technology may be most effectively scrutinized when they are linked to their countries of origin. Freeman's assertion is that these "national systems of innovation" are central to understanding which advances in technology will be the most productively used. The great strength of Freeman's research is that he pinpoints how Japan has leap frogged ahead of other industrialized nations since World War II by establishing a country-wide system for efficient implementation of major new technological advances. He highlights Japan's national system of innovation comprised of its national education and training systems, its network of public and private institutions. The activities and interactions of these networks "initiate, import, modify and diffuse and operate" the country's new technologies" (1). Freeman's brilliance is that he combines economic and cultural analysis allowing his readers to realize why Japan's remarkable prosperity is anything but accidental.

In this cross-cultural study, Freeman compares the technological policies and institutional practices of Japan with the US, UK, West Germany and France (See charts 8-13). In 1962 the US spent almost four times as much money as its Western European counterparts on gross expenditure on

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oncentrate technological effort and new investment" (55). The Japanese were also sufficiently clever to outline the different needs at such variable levels as national, keiretsu, and company (55). Japanese dominance of certain areas of the electronics market is notorious. In the mid-1970s the electronic capital goods overtook consumer electronics in importance within the Japanese economy (87). One of Freeman's skills is that he can succinctly explain theoretical reasons for the Japanese's economy enormous success rate. Quoting Kodama, Freeman indicates that two major types of innovations assisted this success. These innovations can be subdivided into 2 types. The first, a "break-through" type innovation is to be associated with "strong leadership in a particular industry (87). The second, "fusion-type" innovation occurs when a "concentrated effort of several different industries is involved" (87). In analyzing the technology gaps which have emerged in Japan, Freeman cites the difference between its structural crisis of the 1920s and 1930s in comparison with what transpired in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1920s and 1930s Japan needed to modify its institutional practices to adapt to the assembly-line and flow-pro
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Approximate Word count = 2038
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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