A Study On The Characteristics And Spatial Agglomeration Of R & D Activities In Japanese Enterprises

With the development of economic globalization and the Knowledge explosion,the impact of independent innovation capability has become a national and regionalcore competitiveness determinant. Developed countries and regions has proved thatthe main technological innovation is the only enterprise, and the R&D activities arethe ’brains and soul’ of a company. Therefore, R&D strength undoubtedly becomes anational or regional independent innovation capability meterIn the1980s, Japan has succeeded through innovative mechanisms for resourceallocation, and made its product be famous in the world stage. Nowadays, theJapanese development industry is flourishing; continues to lead Japan’s technologicallevel and the economy. In the process of economic globalization, Japan has achievedthe upgrading of industrial structure and regional competitiveness. Despite theworldwide distribution of the production plant and research institutions in Japanmultinational companies, Japan, as a region of the global system division of high-endservices and research and development industries, has shown morphologicaldevelopment of spatial agglomeration industry.This paper attempts to research and analysis the Japanese corporate R&Dactivities and spatial agglomerations which are based on the researches by scholars.The first part of this article is focused on the macro level of Japanese situationanalysis, research and some cases. Analysis and concluded that Japanese companiesdeveloped eight characteristics relative advantages and disadvantages, includingtechnical knowledge level, market level, the R&D team behavior, the relationshipbetween academia and officials, while summarized improved methods of Japanesecompanies for R&D activities on disadvantages. The second part of this paper isfocused on the phenomenon that R&D institutions for Japanese companies arehighly concentrated in Tokyo and Osaka through the Kenkyu.Net which has collected1855compa’nies data. The organizational factor, the traditional location factor, neweconomic geography, size of the market, technological infrastructure, humanresource factor, universities and research institutions, infrastructure factor, major factors has been studied. In the above factors, Tokyo and Osaka were showing asJ’apans two major economic&political center with a big advantage of the attractingmany companies in the establishment of R&D institutions.