Introduction to Software Engineering Innovation in Japan

The Japanese information service industry continues to have a considerable presence in the world, although its total sales have grown at a sluggish pace since it passed 10 trillion yen in 2005. However, IT vendors in Japan are facing a wide range of old and new issues in their business environment, such as responses to rapid technological innovations, an orientation of custom-made applications for the domestic market, global competition with new entrants from emerging countries, man-month-based multilayer subcontractors, origin of vendor (e.g., manufacturer spin-offs, user spin-offs, and independents), leadership of senior managers at IT vendors, skill building of software engineers, and IT management in user companies. In this book, we address these issues relating to the Japanese software industry as part of management of software engineering innovation, and we simultaneously look at the whole picture from both supply and demand sides of software. In this chapter, we articulate the research objectives based on a literature review of the information service industry in Japan (e.g., market size and history, government policy, and industry structure), innovation in the software industry (e.g., issues of the Japanese software industry, nature of Japanese software innovation, and types of innovation), the approach to research (e.g., the resource-based view and relevant software engineering disciplines), and measurement models. Next, we seek to clarify the relationships between the software engineering capabilities of Japanese IT vendors, their business performance, and their business environment through the eight chapters of the book.