Mitsuhiro FUKUZAWA

<jats:p>This study aimed to reveal the actual state of Japanese firms’ logistics outsourcing, and examine their relationship with LSPs. This study addressed the following issues by conducting a case study of six leading manufacturing firms. First, it clarified the characteristics of Japanese-style logistics outsourcing as: the outsourcing of the total activities, the consigning to a single LSP, and the development of advanced information systems. Moreover, it examined the logistics outsourcing performance from a sustainable perspective, and concluded that Japanese-style logistics management enables firms to achieve high performance in all the economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Second, this study confirms that the traditional Japanese business practice of long-term partnerships is still maintained in logistics outsourcing management. Third, this study also explored how long-term partnerships create sustainable competitive advantages. Finally, based on these findings, a theoretical framework illustrating the relationship between Japanese-style logistics outsourcing and firms’ sustainable competitive advantage is presented. Our findings may encourage companies to develop a long-term partnership with their logistics service providers, and to put environmental and social indicators into their KPI system to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage by balancing the economy, environment, and society.</jats:p>

<jats:p>This study investigates the objectives, approval process, decision criteria, metrics, and performance of the Internet of Things (IoT) system investment in four Japanese manufacturing firms through exploratory case analysis. This study conducted semi-structured interviews and several workshops with practitioners to collect, confirm, supplement, and verify the interviews data and the researcher’s interpretations. The study clarifies the actual status of investment activities in IoT systems and the essential common issues. In addition, this study shows that IoT investments in Japanese companies improve production activities’ efficiency. However, collaboration among divisions and departments other than production is not sufficient. This paper also contributes to constructing an analytical framework for comprehensively clarifying IT system investment decision-making and investment effects. These findings will be one of the reference points of the IoT system investment project and will contribute to the recent digital transformation movement in many manufacturing firms.</jats:p>

With the globalization and digitization of corporate activities in recent years, the efficiency of supply chain management and company-wide information flow has become urgent issues. Responding to these issues, Japanese companies have been implementing and utilizing enterprise systems to efficiently coordinate various activities related to value creation. This study aims to elucidate the actual status of the enterprise system implementation and operation, as well as the critical issues commonly encountered, based on an exploratory case study of five Japanese manufacturing companies. The contribution of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of the problems that arise when integrating existing IT systems, new IT systems, and manufacturing organizational capabilities from the perspective of IT system evolution and the dynamic process of corporate activities to overcome these problems. Another significant contribution is the presentation of a framework for a comprehensive analysis of the evolutionary process of the implementation and utilization of the enterprise systems.