Toshiyuki Kono

This book argues that large corporations need to implement governance practices and processes that make them better innovators and that the challenge is to identify organizational principles and practices that provide the best chance of delivering innovative products to create a meaningful consumer experience. In this context, it is important to recognize that when we address organizational forms, we are not thinking of corporate governance in the sense of managing agency costs and ensuring regulatory compliance, but the more pressing business task of putting in place organizational systems and processes that facilitate value creation through continued and sustained innovation. The book examines how the contemporary concept and discourse of corporate governance may be obsolete or, at least, is increasingly disconnected from the needs and realities of the most innovative firms today. The concept of organizing for innovation—identifying process and practices that deliver the best opportunities for innovation—needs to take centre stage. This book aims to contribute to the nascent debate in this area by bringing together a series of chapters that examine various issues related to organizing for innovation.

This book argues that large corporations need to implement governance practices and processes that make them better innovators and that the challenge is to identify organizational principles and practices that provide the best chance of delivering innovative products to create a meaningful consumer experience. In this context, it is important to recognize that when we address organizational forms, we are not thinking of corporate governance in the sense of managing agency costs and ensuring regulatory compliance, but the more pressing business task of putting in place organizational systems and processes that facilitate value creation through continued and sustained innovation. The book examines how the contemporary concept and discourse of corporate governance may be obsolete or, at least, is increasingly disconnected from the needs and realities of the most innovative firms today. The concept of organizing for innovation—identifying process and practices that deliver the best opportunities for innovation—needs to take centre stage. This book aims to contribute to the nascent debate in this area by bringing together a series of chapters that examine various issues related to organizing for innovation.

At the beginning of the 21st century, in Japan and most of the continental European economies, we can observe a shift from what has been labelled a "corporatist" system to more market-oriented structures. Regulatory competition caused by the globalization of markets is increasingly placing the traditional legal institutions of these jurisdictions under severe strain. This is especially true for the services markets. Of these, the markets for financial services and telecommunications services have to adapt most urgently. These adaptations are already underway to varying extents and degrees, made possible by a mixture of de-regulation and re-regulation. In this volume, scholars from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Japan as well as practitioners from various institutions lay out the theoretical foundations and means for these developments. Through critical analysis, the various contributions show what has been reached so far in Europe and Japan and what remains to be achieved in the future.

At a time when there are still a number of voices calling for the Internet to remain a law-free zone, a whole bundle of conflicts have already emerged, many of which have found their way to lawyers and the courts in a substantial number of different jurisdictions. It surely now cannot be doubted that the Internet, like any other place in the world where people come together and follow their own interests, needs rules to be developed for the handling of such conflicts. Lawyers have already reacted and have created a new area of law, commonly called "law of the Internet" or "cyberlaw". This area, however, is far from being strictly defined. It touches on many existing areas of law, but at the same time it deals with a wholly new medium - cyberspace - which itself is subject to constant change and development. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that in a number of cases the predictions as to how this law will look at some selected moment in the future are vague and uncertain. This is particularly true for the commercial side of the Internet, for which the term "e-commerce" has been coined. So rapid have been the developments of e-commerce, that it is now frequently said that this is the future of any commerce and that it carries the potential for enormous growth - at least for the business to business ("B2B") sector. This text covers some important legal issues arising in e-commerce.

The phenomenon of increased interconnectedness of the world's societies, generally referred to as globalization, is not only changing our everyday life, it also influences the legal framework we are living in. The challenges brought about by this process are especially great in fields of law which are by their very nature international such as private international law, the law of capital markets, international insolvency law or the law of the Internet: can, for example, established conflict-of-law rules survive in a globalized world? What options exist for regulating capital markets in the era of globalization? Are national laws on international insolvencies prepared for the increasing number of cross-border insolvency proceedings or does the UNCITRAL model law on cross-border insolvency show the way? How can national or international legislators react to the new forms of torts and copyright infringements via the World Wide Web? These are some of the questions which scholars from Japan and Germany try to answer in this volume. All essays are based on contributions to a symposium which took place in Fukuoka, Japan, on 28-29 March, 1999.