ALBERT

Notes: This paper describes strategic community management that can be implemented by large established companies through the creation of a variety of strategic business communities. The paper focuses in particular on the case of NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Japan’s largest mobile telecommunications carrier, which has utilized strategic community management principles in their efforts to cultivate and expand the mobile Internet market in Japan over roughly the past two years.This paper also deals with the development of an emerging mobile Internet market spawned by the creation of strategic communities supported by strategic communities which consist of informal in-house organizations and diverse strategic heterogeneous alliances with outside firms including customers, and elucidates strategic community management as an effective methodology aimed at strategic innovation conducted by major enterprises.

Notes: This paper discusses the management processes for forming strategic communities by means of strategic partnerships between businesses and customers. It considers the introduction into these strategic communities of the knowledge and core competence of customers with a high degree of learning experience with respect to the products and services provided by the businesses. This creates new products and services and at the same time extends the results of the strategic communities to many other associated customers. The innovation of a telemedicine system in the field of veterinary medicine in Japan is taken as a case study. Here a strategic community of business and innovative customers developed new systems using IT and multimedia technology. The results from the strategic community were extended to many other related customers in a chain of community creation, and the new systems were widely proliferated throughout the whole of Japan.

Notes: This paper discusses the basic framework of strategic community management. It will be argued that a community producer creates, based on his vision, a concept of a business community comprised of diverse types of businesses and processes to achieve business innovation. The producer serves an important function in creating a strategic community. A regional initiative towards electronic networking will be studied that illustrates the use of information and multimedia technologies as an instance of the latest business case of strategic community management. It shows how a community producer has created a strategic community in which the central government, regional government, universities, hospitals, private businesses and Not for Profit Organizations take part in the advancement of regional electronic networking.

Notes: Uses a case study to discuss factors for success in the course of achieving strategic innovation in the mobile Internet business field, specifically in the creation of new markets through the deliberate and strategic maintenance and subsequent integration of paradoxical organizations and strategies under a single corporate umbrella. The corporation accepted a new organizational body imbued with an entrepreneurial spirit supported by different types of personnel and then continuously promoted entrepreneurial strategies based on time pacing. At the same time, with the aim to implement strategic innovation, the company integrated the above strategies with deliberate strategies based on event-based pacing practiced by the existing organizational body. Behind this successful innovation lies the formation of a strategic community with both new and traditional organizations through the leadership of top and middle management and the subsequent integration of paradoxical strategies promoted by knowledge management, which led to the creation of a new market known as the mobile Internet.

Notes: Presents a case study of how over the last six years a large, traditional corporation simultaneously created new service markets and established a dominant position in the competitive information and communication technology field in Japan. The corporation accepted a new organizational body that has an entrepreneurial spirit and consists of different types of personnel, then continuously promoted emergent strategies. At the same time, in an attempt to implement strategic innovation the company integrated the above strategies with deliberate strategies practised by the existing line organizational body. Through a case study, discusses the factors for success and the problems encountered in the course of achieving strategic innovation in the communications field, i.e. the creation of a new market through the creation of strategic communities based on cooperation between different organizations.

Notes: For the various cyber businesses of the future based on the Internet, multimedia, and other new electronic fields, business organization styles, management methods and the distribution of management resources must be re-formed to accommodate the transformation of the business environment. This article examines the case of a virtual education business in Japan, which has recently been garnering attention as a knowledge-based business that utilizes multimedia, networks, etc. This article will take the position that chains connecting different business and organizations into spiral-shaped, strategic community arrangements will develop and expand new markets, and that it will attest to the fact that both ends in such a business tie-up will be able to hitch themselves to yield-growth businesses.

Notes: This paper describes the importance of strategic community creation as a new management style. It verifies that video-based information networks utilizing information and multimedia technologies enhance the quality of competencies and knowledge possessed by strategic communities, and it also verifies, through case studies, these networks are valid as organizational learning support systems within the strategic communities. Innovations in the area of veterinary medicine utilizing video-based information networks over the past four years in Japan are taken as examples. This paper describes how knowledge and competencies within strategic communities comprising "industry, government, and academia" are enhanced, how the new virtual methods of telemedicine and distance learning are incorporated into the business process, and how "concepts of regionally linked cooperative bodies" are realized.

Notes: The article will propose strategic community management as a new management style and innovation technique for large, established companies, that is implemented through the creation of a variety of strategic business communities. The article will take up, as a new model case of the use of strategic community management in business, the expansion of Japan's multimedia communication market achieved by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, Inc. (hereafter, NTT), Japan's largest telecommunications carrier, over roughly the past four years. The article will explain how NTT cultivated this new multimedia market, which was spawned from its creation of business communities (both internal and external, and including communities with customers) using strategic outsourcing and various strategic partnerships with businesses in other industries.

Notes: Purpose - To produce rapid innovation, Japanese companies have learned to manage strategic communities for new product development. These communities require the merging and integration of different technologies and the coordination of relationships among all levels of management, alliance partners, and customers. Design/methodology/approach - Through case studies of two Japanese companies, the author examines the successful new product development process practised by these strategic communities and their networks. Findings - As the cases reveal, strategic teams at each company - consisting mainly of cross-functional middle managers from a number of business divisions - formed strategic communities inside and outside the companies that included customers, and then formed networks that transcended the strategic communities' boundaries. In record time, strategic community leaders enabled companies to build new business models aimed at customers and then achieve successful new product development. Research limitations/implications - Two case studies are reported on. The author was directly involved in one of them. Practical implications - As this research indicates, to successfully innovate, companies may need to form strategic communities that are not tied to existing organizational structures or cultures. Superior core technology in the leading-edge high-tech fields of IT and e-commerce continues to spread throughout the world and undergo dramatic changes. Innovative companies that need to establish competitive advantage in the network economy must not try to retain full control over innovative processes under the conditions of conventional hierarchical mechanisms and closed autonomous systems. In other words, companies will from now on probably increasingly require a management that can use networked strategic communities to synthesize superior knowledge that is open and spread out both inside and outside the organization, including customers. Originality/value - Companies will from now on probably increasingly require a management that can use networked strategic communities to synthesize superior knowledge that is open and spread out both inside and outside the organization, including customers.

Notes: Purpose - Aims to provide new practical viewpoints regarding the knowledge management and leadership theory of project management through an in-depth case study Design/methodology/approach - Argues that community leaders can develop a concept of a business community comprised of diverse types of business and processes to achieve business innovation. Studies a regional initiative in Japan towards electronic networking that illustrates the use of information and multimedia technologies as an instance of the latest business case of strategic community management. Findings - Community leaders serve an important function in creating networked strategic communities. The case study shows how community leaders have created networked strategic communities in which the central government, regional governments, universities, hospitals, private businesses and non-profit organizations take part in the advancement of regional electronic networking. Originality/value - Provides new practical viewpoints regarding the knowledge management and leadership theory of project management.