Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 30 September 1988:
Vol. 241. no. 4874, pp. 1769 - 1774
DOI: 10.1126/science.241.4874.1769
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Industrial Innovation in Japan and the United States

EDWIN MANSFIELD 1

1 Director of the Center for Economics and Technology and professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Japanese firms tend to be quicker and more economical than U.S.firms at developing and introducing new products and processes, but this advantage seems to exist only among innovations based on external technology, rather than internal technology. Whereas U.S.firms put more emphasis on marketing start-up, they put much less emphasis on tooling, equipment, and manufacturing facilities than do Japanese firms. Applied R&D in Japan, which focuses more on processes than in the United States, seems to have yielded a handsome return; but there is no evidence that the rate of return from basic research has been relatively high in Japan. In robotics, the Japanese edge seems to increase as one moves from R&D toward the market.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The Japanese Management Theory Jungle-Revisited.
J. B. Keys, L. T. Denton, and T. R. Miller (1994)
Journal of Management 20, 373-402
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)