Interactive Business Communities

Innovation in technology and services was once the result of specialist knowledge developed within a single corporation; now, a single focus on the development of new products and services is no longer enough. In Interactive Business Communities, Mitsuru Kodama shows how a new business approach can enable managers to access, share and integrate diverse knowledge both inside and outside the corporation using Boundary Networks to operate across more formal organizational and knowledge boundaries at all levels. Drawing on his studies of large corporations in America and the Far East, Mitsuru, shows how different companies have already started to take this path. He explains the kind of networks and strategic partnerships that have emerged and gives practical guidelines on how to begin forming in-house business communities and extending this to interactive business communities with customers and other organizations. This book is a valuable resource for business educators and researchers, and senior executives responsible for strategy, particularly in high-tech industries, will find insights and ideas to tackle 21st century market and business discontinuities.

Mitsuru Kodama is Professor of Innovation and Technology Management in the College of Commerce and Graduate School of Business Administration at Nihon University, Japan. Prior to joining the University he worked in marketing and as a planning engineer at KDD, NTT and NTT DoCoMo in Japan. He holds a BSc., an MSc. and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Waseda University, Japan. Professor Kodama has written seven books and over eighty refereed papers on business and management topics. He has received R&D 100 Awards in US and three Emerald Highly Commended Awards for his contributions to journals in the USA and Europe and he sits on several editorial boards.