Tradition and Innovation in Japanese Long-Established Companies: Focus on E-Business

Abstract

This paper discusses tradition and innovation in Japanese long-established companies and aims to demonstrate the unique characteristics of such companies with a focus on e-business. While it is thought that long-established companies hold stubbornly to tradition and that their management practices are archaic, in actuality, they are flexible in their adaptation to change. Among those adaptations, it is necessary to examine their response to the rapid development of e-business in recent years.To begin, we will provide overview of several long-establish companies upon which our study is based, including Kongo Gumi, and Yasuda-Nenju and Chuuboku-Chaya.