Strategic Innovation in Traditional Big Business: Case Studies of Two Japanese Companies

Abstract

This paper presents two case studies of how large, traditional corporations simultaneously created new service markets and established a dominant position in the competitive fields of the Internet and mobile communications in Japan. The corporations accepted new organizational bodies imbued with an entrepreneurial spirit supported by different types of personnel and then continuously promoted entrepreneurial strategies based on time pacing. At the same time, with the aim of implementing strategic innovation, the companies integrated the above strategies with deliberate strategies based on event-based pacing practiced by the existing organizational bodies. This paper uses case studies to discuss the factors in success and the problems encountered in the course of achieving strategic innovation in the communications field, specifically in the creation of new markets, through the deliberate and strategic maintenance and subsequent integration of paradoxical organizations and strategies under a single corporate umbrella.