The roles that entrepreneurs play in the development of the economy and society are significant, in that they create new businesses and new values (products, technology and service) that did not exist in the past and in turn new production activities and life styles.
Rock Field Co., Ltd., the owner of RF1, a fashionable, modern delicatessen shop located in the basement floor of department stores, was founded in 1972 by the entrepreneur, Kozo Iwata. He started the business after detecting early signs of social trends such as social advancement of women, a growing consciousness of food safety and health, and environmental preservation and maintained its growth by constantly changing business models. Case studies on his personal history, how he started the business and the process of business growth will enable students to appreciate what entrepreneurship truly means.
Horiba, Ltd., headquartered in Kyoto, is a global company which develops, manufactures, and sells automotive emission analyzers, medical monitoring equipments, semiconductor fabrication/analysis equipments and other analytical equipments. Its founder, Mr. Masao Horiba, is a pioneer of venture businesses originating from universities. As his company motto “Live Merrily and Cheerfully” shows, he is known as a unique entrepreneur. By studying both his engineer-researcher side and manager side, the students will be able to examine the strategic roles of contemporary entrepreneurs.

In this course, students discussed ‘Sharp’s TFT LCD Business Formation’ based on an interview with the former president, Mr. Haruo Tsuji and other relevant data. Soon after his taking office as president in 1986, Mr. Tsuji chose TFT LCD as the future pillar of the company’s device business. The class analyzed how he reached this decision and the way TFT LCDs were applied to various products and discussed the question ‘What is the key to realizing a grand concept?’
Various episodes of importance from interviews with various staff members of Sharp who had been involved in the development of TFT LCDs were discussed. Also shown were the test product of a 14-inch color TFT LCD panel that became a key factor in the decision to produce the world’s first 14-inch type television and pictures of the mass production factory for TFT LCD panels that was established by the decision. Interviews with people who were actually involved in the decision making process and visual data relevant to it were very effective for students to take part in the discussion process with a sense of reality.

The essence of contemporary corporate management, I believe, hinges on how corporate managers provide the company with an innovative environment. Innovation does not come from common sense; rather, it originates from the heterogeneous and the unusual. In fact, innovation cannot be brought about by the strategy planning staff proceeding in a logical manner, but in reality emerges from actual business practice where top management strategies are implemented through the process of trial and error. Recently scholars overseas have started to focus on the actual process of strategy implementation. In this sense, front-line corporate managers are invited to the class to share their experiences with the students as often as possible, in the hope of providing students with the chance to learn how managers strive to create an innovative environment in their company.
In 2007, Mr. Haruo Tsuji, Special Advisor of Sharp Corporation, Mr. Koichi Rikura, President of Risho Kogyo Co., Ltd., and Mr. Tokuichi Uranishi, Executive Vice President of Toyota Motor Co., Ltd., were invited to the class to describe their own management experiences for our case study purposes. Students found out how those ordinary middle-aged men, once they started to talk about corporate management, were tormented by a ‘sense of crisis’ every day; they were struggling to overcome it and patiently persuading their staff members. Many students later told me that they were overwhelmed by the energy and aura emitted by these managers. Today is “an era of innovative managers.”

This course aims at providing the students with comprehensive learning of the functions of entrepreneurs, such as their management philosophies and strategies, decision making processes, management activities and other factors, by first studying theories and trends relating entrepreneurs and their activities and by studying in depth cases of entrepreneurs who played important roles in bringing management innovation in Japan. As reference materials, besides papers, books, corporate histories and biographies of entrepreneurs, ‘oral histories’ or the method of acquiring study materials from interviews with contemporary entrepreneurs will play a very important role. Interviews convey in a realistic and powerful way the enthusiasm, ambitions and personalities of entrepreneurs that cannot be obtained from the literature. This program (Enhancement of Education at Professional Schools Program) maintains video records of interview sessions in the hope of introducing this sense of reality directly to the students of IBA.
The instructor himself conducted an interview with Mr. Kyoji Nishikawa, former president and current special advisor of Hanshin Railways Co., Ltd. Formerly seen as a conservative railway company, Hanshin Railways changed its course, especially in the past two decades, to more radical and aggressive strategies such as the development of the Nishi-Umeda area, the extension of the Nishi-Osaka Line and the strengthening of its contents business, including Hanshin Tigers and Billboard Live. Now the railway company’s business performance compares favorably with the other four major private railway companies in Osaka.
Hanshin is also remembered by the recent ‘Murakami Funds’ incident. Mr. Nishikawa, a corporate manager with a technological background, was in the center of the Nishi-Umeda development project and the extension plan of the Nishi Osaka Line during this period. He described in detail the plans and subsequent progress of these projects and gave a complete picture of transformation from a conventional stock-type business to a flow-type business in today’s private railways. Mr. Nishikawa would not go into the details about the Murakami Fund incident and the merger with Hankyu Railways, but his feelings about those incidents he handled as president were notable during the interview.
The interviewer also had a chance to meet Mr. Tsuneaki Miyazaki, chairman and owner of Hanshin Tigers. It was a pleasant occasion for the interviewer to hear from him directly on how the baseball team was managed, what the management strategy was, and interesting stories about players on the team. The results of those interviews will be used as case studies in the course.

This course focuses on product development in business activities of a firm. Success of a management strategy conceived by top management depends on the implementation process of the strategic objectives and how the concept can be communicated to the line level.
This course focuses on the management innovation measures that Mr. Haruo Tsuji, Special Advisor of Sharp Corporation, took in order to overcome the difficulties after the Plaza Accord and on the rare entrepreneurship he demonstrated in exploring the era of LCD for Sharp, especially in product development. His insight in selecting a device, LCD, as a priority business for future, as well as the way he created a corporate culture of developing LCD applications by personally stimulating the company to develop LCD-applied products, exemplify entrepreneurship that reaches to the workplace level.
It will be meaningful that students are able to learn the true nature of the LCD strategy, which in the past tended to be glossed over by such perfunctory terms as spiral strategy and vertical integration, by utilizing the case “Management of Mr. Tsuji’s in the Development of LCD Application Products.”

Participants in the class will learn how commerce and manufacturers’ roles and distribution policies have changed. Of these, changes in commerce are the central issue of the class and the principal themes include the changes in major retail businesses, the modernization of wholesalers and innovations in distribution technology.
A case developed under the “Enhancement of Education at Professional Schools” program focused on Mr. Tsutomu Okuda, Chairman of Daimaru Inc., and examined Daimaru’s strategy in expanding their stores. It looked at how its store development strategy underwent a major change by adopting the method of standardized store management and corresponding store hardware designing that had been out of reach for other department stores.
From the interviews with Mr. Okuda, a case study and a video mainly introduce the key points in his experience of opening a new store in the Umeda area and in his decision to open a store in Sapporo. By reconfirming the contents of the case through Mr. Okuda’s own words, students will be able to understand subtle nuances and the processes behind his decisions. ‘The Opening of Daimaru’s Sapporo Store’ is, in this sense, a very important case and its use in this course should be very meaningful for the class.