Putting innovation in place: Policy strategies for industrial services, regional clusters, and manufacturing SMEs in Japan and the United States

Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 69-87

  Shapira, Philip ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Industrial modernization; Innovation policy; Small and medium size enterprises

Indexed keywords

CONVERGENCE; GLOBALIZATION; INNOVATION; MANUFACTURING; POLICY STRATEGY; REGIONAL POLICY; SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISE; TECHNOLOGY POLICY;

ASIA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; JAPAN; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 39149129392     PISSN: 08109028     EISSN: 14701030     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08109020701846041     Document Type: Review

References (60)

1. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Conference on Restructuring SMEs in the Age of Globalization, East-West Center and the Korean Development Institute, Honolulu, HI, 20- 22 July 2005.
2. Workshop on Japanese Approaches to Local Development, Clusters, Industry- University Linkages and Implications for British Columbia, Center for Japanese Research, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 8-9 March 2007.
3. See, for example, the fascinating comparison of very different local and national government responses to industrial restructuring in the cities of Omuta (Kyushu) and Flint (Michigan) in T. J. Gilman, No Miracles Here: Fighting Urban Decline in Japan and the United States, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2001.
4. The authority of Japan's governmental ministries and the role of central 'administrative guidance' are classically detailed in C. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1982. Importantly, Johnson argues that Japan's powerful central state and the institutions it developed were vital to the country's modern development for much of the twentieth century.
5. D. Osborne and T. Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, Plume, New York, 1993.
6. There are differences in how manufacturing SMEs are defined in the USA and Japan. For the US, this paper draws on data where generally SMEs are defined as independently-owned businesses with fewer than 500 employees. For Japan, the paper uses the governmental definition of manufacturing SMEs as comprising enterprises with 300 or fewer regular employees.
7. US Small Business Administration, Enterprise and Employment Data (downloadable spreadsheet file), Office of Advocacy, Washington, DC, available at: http://www.sba.gov, accessed February 2007.
8. Japan Small Business Research Institute, White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises in Japan, 2006, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Tokyo, 2006.
9. Conversely, it should be noted that large enterprises (with 500 or more workers) employed 56% of the US manufacturing workforce in 2004, compared with the 25% of the Japanese manufacturing workforce engaged in large enterprises (more than 300 employees). US Small Business Administration, op. cit.
10. Japan Small Business Research Institute, White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises in Japan, 2004, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Tokyo, 2004, Appendix Tables 4(3) and 5(2).
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13. Over the period 1991-2004, Japanese manufacturing SMEs lost 808,000 jobs (-28.4%) compared with 557,000 lost jobs (-12.0%) for US manufacturing SMEs. Interestingly, the job loss rate among large manufacturers was practically the same in Japan as it was in the US, at about -33% over the period 1991-2004 (see Table 1).
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26. Shapira et al., op. cit.
27. Johnson, op. cit.
28. Japan Small Business Research Institute, 2004, op. cit.
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30. See, for example, T. Ginsburg, 'Dismantling the "developmental state"? Administrative procedure reform in Japan and Korea', The American Journal of Comparative Law, Fall 2001, pp. 585-625.
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33. Office of Science and Technology Policy, American Competitiveness Initiative, Domestic Policy Council, Executive Office of the President, Washington, DC, 2006.
34. This section draws upon and updates earlier comparisons of Japanese and US industrial services and extension policies contained in P. Shapira, 'Modernizing small manufacturers in the United States and Japan: Public technology infrastructures and strategies', in M. Teubal, D. Foray, M. Justman and E. Zuscovitch (eds), Technological Infrastructure Policy (TIP): An International Perspective, Kluwer Academic Press, 1996, pp. 285-334.
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39. Office of Technology Assessment, Making Things Better: Competing in Manufacturing, US Congress, Washington, DC, 1990.
40. MEP's federal funding was $105 million in FY 2006 and is estimated at the same level for FY 2007. For FY 2008, the President did not propose to zero-out the program but requested a reduction in the MEP federal budget to $46 million. Congressional action is pending. Most likely, federal funding will be restored to prior levels.
41. P. Shapira, 'Evaluating industrial extension services in the United States: Experiences and insights', in P. Shapira and S. Kuhlman (eds), Learning from Science and Technology Policy Evaluation, Edward Elgar Publishers, Northampton, MA and Cheltenham, UK, 2003.
42. The ATP has been a 'flagship' innovation program which has been favorably evaluated; see National Research Council, The Advanced Technology Program: Assessing Outcomes, Washington, DC, 2001.
43. National Institute of Standards and Technology, A Toolkit for Evaluating Public R&D Investment, Gaithersburg, MD, 2003. However the program is viewed as too interventionist and unnecessary by the current administration, leading to White House efforts to zero-out the program's federal budget.
44. See, for example, Friedman, op. cit..
45. Office of Technology Assessment, op. cit..
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53. Rosenfeld, op. cit.
54. The discussion of Japanese cluster policies in this section draws on a memo prepared by the author in 2004 as background for an OECD Territorial Review of Japan. The author is responsible for the observations presented (not OCED). See also: National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, A Study on the Successful Factors of Regional Innovation and Promotion Policy through the Comparison of Examples of Advanced Clusters in the USA and Europe and Regional Clusters in Japan, Third Policy-Oriented Research Group, Tokyo, Japan, 2003.
55. Japan Small Business Research Institute, 2006, op. cit, Part II, ch. 4.
56. H. Inoue, 'Activating industrial clusters: On the spot experience, industrial cluster promotion office', Regional Economy and Industry Group, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Tokyo, Japan, 29 September 2003 (PowerPoint presentation).
57. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, CLUSTER: Cooperative Link of Unique Science and Technology for Economy Revitalization, Tokyo, 2002.
58. Cited in National Science Foundation, 'Third business-academia-government summit: Tokyo, Japan, November 17, 2003, Tokyo Regional Office, Report Memorandum #04-01, 2003.
59. I. Mitsui, 'Industrial cluster policies and regional development in the age of globalization: Eastern and Western approaches and their differences', Yokohama National University, paper presented at 30th ISBC, Singapore, September 2003, available at: http://www.nemw.org/ smallmanufacturers/advocacyresources.htm, accessed July 2005.
60. For a discussion of the evaluation of US industrial services, see Shapira, 2003, op. cit.