2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

International marketing by Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23653106
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Business administration
Research Institution	Tokuyama University
Principal Investigator	OTA Yasuhiro 徳山大学, 経済学部, 教授 (90299321)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2013
Keywords	中小企業 / 繊維産業 / 国際マーケティング
Research Abstract	Our research revealed that there is huge behavioral gap between western trend-leading firms and Japanese trend-following firms. Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that manage to increase their product value need to collaborate with the western trend-leaders. However, the Japanese SMEs are in constraint to joining western trade fairs and approaching to western trend leaders. And the SMEs are also required to change their behavioral patterns from that of trend followers to trend leaders, which is big challenge for them. Thus, Japanese firms, industrial associations, and government should effectively promote trend creation in Japan.