Achieving Innovation through Bureaucracy: Lessons from the Japanese Brewing Industry

A “new product” is defined as one in which the beer is physically different—in ingredients and/or brewing method—from products previously offered by the producer. The beer must also be announced and advertised to the consumer as a new or improved beer. The following are not counted as new products: Unpublicized adjustments in the taste of existing beers; a previously marketed beer offered in a new type or size of container; new foreign brands produced under license by Japanese brewers in Japan.

Von Hippel Eric , “Task Partitioning: An Innovation Process Variable,” Research Policy, 19 (1990): 407–418.

Kubo Hiroshi , “Kirin wo Yomigaeraseta Tokkoyaku” (The Medicine that Revived Kirin), Zaikai Tenbo, August, 1991, 254–259.

Ishiyama Junya , Asahi Beer no Chosen [The Challenge of Asahi Beer] (Tokyo: Nihon Noritsu Kyokai, 1989); Kokuryo Jiro , Asahi Breweries, Ltd. (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 1989).

Usuba Hisashi , “Asahi Super Dry Beer—Its Identity and History,” MBAA Technical Quarterly, 26 (1989): 85–88.

Kokuryo , op. cit.

Ishiyama , op. cit.

Tokumaru Soya , “Aji, Message, Shokubunka: Dore ga Kakete mo Ikinokorenai” [Taste, Message, and Food Culture: Survival Requires All Three], Dime, April 5, 1990, p. 92.

Esaka Akira , “Kirin Beer: Eiko no Shinwa wo Torimodosu Joken” [Kirin Beer: Conditions for Reviving a Success Story], President (April 1988), pp. 231–232.

Nagaoka Fumiyoshi Nakagawa Takao Sakai Koichiro Honma Yasuhiro , “Kirin Beer: ‘Seiko no Fukushu’ ni Nayamu Gulliver” [Kirin Beer: The Price of Past Success for Gulliver], Nikkei Business, June 19, 1989, p. 21.

Nagaoka Nakagawa Sakai Honma , op. cit., pp. 6–21.

Esaka , op. cit., p. 238.

Kubo , op. cit.

Esaka , op. cit., p. 237.

Esaka , op. cit., p. 245–246.

Kubo , op. cit.

Brewery Kirin Union Kirin Labor , “Jiritsu Sengen” [Independence Declaration], Company pamphlet, February 1990.

Nagaoka Nakagawa Sakai Honma , op. cit.

Nagaoka Nakagawa Sakai Honma , op. cit., p. 19–20.

Kubo , op. cit, p. 258.

Brewery Kirin Union Kirin Labor , “Shinseido Shiryohen” [New System Information, Compiled], Company pamphlet, February 1990.

Kubo , op. cit.; author interview with Shigeo Sakurai.

Ouchi W. G. , “Markets, Bureaucracies, and Clans,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 25 (1980): 129–141; Williamson O. E. , Markets and Hierarchies (New York, NY: Free Press, 1975).

Hippel Von , op. cit.

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Bourgeois L.J. III Eisenhardt Kathleen M. , “Strategic Decision Processes in High Velocity Environments: Four Cases in the Microcomputer Industry,” Management Science, 34/7 (1988): 816–835.

Adopted from Hayashi Haruo , “Shinshohin Kaihatsu no Soshiki to Taisei” [The Organization and System of New Product Development], JPI Journal, 27/10 (1989): 12.