Study on innovation challenges of local industries and companies under the global economic recession from the viewpoint of sociology

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26380676
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Shizuoka University
• Principal Investigator: FUJII SHIRO 静岡大学, 情報学部, 名誉教授 (00145971)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 浜松 / イノベーション / グローバリゼーション / 生活過程 / 個体システム / 自己形成 / キャリア / 企業

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Focusing transportation industry in Hamamatsu, I examined innovation challenges of local companies after the global economic recession since the 1990s, especially after the Lehman Crisis in 2008. The results of my research are as follows. In accordance with newly-born needs in the local market by exploitation of innovative technologies like EV, local companies in Hamamatsu tried to produce newly-typed parts of vehicles and polish up their conventional-typed parts. As a result, some companies succeeded in establishing new and competitive techniques in their production process. On the other hand, other companies applied their conventional techniques to new products of other areas like health care and agricultural sectors. The reason why local companies could adopt two different types of their responds to the economic recession, was they had a background that the engineers deeply involved in their R&D projects and established strong collaborations with their production process workers.

Free Research Field

労働社会学