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Introduction : the reinvention -- The setting : corporate renewal in a tight business culture -- The background : Japan's economic rise-stability through lifetime employment -- The core concept : aggregate niche strategy -- The impact : Japan's role in global business -- Management change : governance, stewardship, and executive pay -- Financial markets : private equity and M&A -- Managing the reinvention : culture change -- Employment and innovation : the reinvention of the kaisha -- Japan going forward : reinventing for the digital economy.

After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States

"In Choose and Focus, the first in-depth account of this strategic inflection point in Japanese business, Ulrike Schaede argues that the emerging practices and attitudes have created a New Japan. Drawing on profiles of several corporations, including Panasonic, Takeda, Astellas, Softbank, and kakaku.com, Schaede explains how the fundamental principles of Japan's economy have been overturned. "Choose and focus" strategies, Whereby corporations concentrate on core areas and spin off unrelated businesses, have completely altered the strategic logic of Japan's previous industrial architecture"--Jacket

This paper introduces recent fundamental changes in Japan's political economy, and analyzes how these have affected the country's industrial architecture in terms of business group organization. Whereas previously, long-term, stable relations with other firms, banks and shareholders afforded great advantage to many companies, the new dynamic environment has led more and more banks and companies to turn away from stable "insurance" arrangements. The paper shows that a revision of corporate law towards more managerial flexibility paired with broader powers by shareholders matches this shift towards greater transparency, accountability, and competitive strategic positioning. Therefore, processes of corporate governance are also greatly altered. Our perceived wisdom of Japanese business organization needs to be updated.

Digital transformation and demographic change are usually seen as two separate but equally threatening events that foreshadow job replacement, industrial decline, and social bifurcation. Because Japan is the world's frontrunner in demographic change with an ageing and shrinking society, it is facing these two disruptions at the exact same time. This creates a 'lucky moment,' as it presents an opportunity to employ one as a solution for the problems caused by the other. For example, Japan's traditional sectors are replaced by digital systems that demand fewer people while offering new jobs. Emerging technologies are opening fresh opportunities for Japanese companies to compete globally. The twin disruptions are also upending Japan's political economy. As companies reinvent business strategies and employees reskill to pursue individual careers, the state is reorganizing to find a new role in balancing the unfolding demands of the digital economy.