Co-Evolutionary Domestication For Selfpropagating Functionality Development: Lessons From Mobile Phone Business Ventures | Noritomo Ouchi & Chihiro Watanabe

While it has been broadly pointed out that strong institutional impediments exist in Japan for the initial public offering (IPO) of new ventures, a noteworthy trend has been observed recently regarding firms associated with mobile phones and their allied business activities (MPF). These accomplishments can be attributed to their self-propagating behavior based on a co-evolution between a high level of publicizing intensity and subsequent broad stockholder involvement. Such behavior corresponds to the bond percolation mechanism postulating that the structural impediment lying ahead of new ventures. IPO challenge can be overcome by filling up of the information discrepancy. It can be achieved by enhancing the density of information by means of publicizing intensity and active information carriers by broad stockholder involvement. Given the conspicuous performance demonstrated by MPF based on the foregoing self-propagating behavior, it can be anticipated that a new production model orresponding to a swell toward a post information society has developed in Japan through new ventures that challenge an IPO. This swell provides a constructive suggestion for firms in their shifting to a new production model. On the basis of an empirical analysis focusing on the performance of MPF, this paper attempts to demonstrate the foregoing hypothetical views.