Recovering from Success

How did Japan fall from challenger to US hegemonic leadership in the high tech industries in the 1980s, to stumbling giant by the turn of the century? This book examines the challenges faced by Japanese companies through emulation by foreign competitors, and the emergence of new competitive models linked to open innovation and modular production.

Robert E. Cole served as Co-Director of the Management of Technology Program at the Haas School of Business from 1997-2006. He is a long term student of Japanese work organization, the auto industry and the Japanese quality movement and has published widely on these topics over the last 35 years. Most recently, he has been working in the hitech arena. Prior to moving to UC Berkeley in 1991, he was Professor of Sociology and Business Administration at the University of Michigan for 24 years.
D. Hugh Whittaker gained his Ph.D from Imperial College, London, and taught at Cambridge University for twelve years before moving to Doshisha University in 2002 as a founding faculty member of Doshisha Business School. He helped to establish and is currently director of the Institute for Technology, Enterprise and Competitiveness (ITEC) at Doshisha University, designated a Centre of Excellence by Japan's Ministry of Education in 2003. He is author of numerous books and articles on Japanese and comparative industry and management, including Small Firms in the Japanese Economy (Cambridge University Press, 1997), and with T. Inagami, The New Community Firm: Employment, Governance and Management Reform in Japan (Cambridge University Press, 2005).