The Dynamics of Knowledge Regimes: Techonlogy, Culture and Competitiveness in the USA and Japan [Hardcover]

Dengjian Jin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2001 | Series: Citizenship and the Law

This work provides the reader with a series of sectoral and comparative insights into the new world of national competitiveness, with particular reference to the US and Japan. It also provides a synthesis of emerging fields around knowledge and evolutionary thought. The author demonstrates the role of cultural factors in co-evolutionary processes, and investigates why different countries consistently perform very differently from one sector to another in the international market for technologies. The book offers an integrated framework for understanding how different national learning patterns affect innovation, and a perspective on the dynamic interaction and co-evolution of culture, technology, institutions and governance.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 321 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826454534
• ISBN-13: 978-0826454539
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,342,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, June 27, 2009

By 

E. Husman "ehusman" (Las Cruces, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dynamics of Knowledge Regimes: Techonlogy, Culture and Competitiveness in the USA and Japan (Hardcover)

Oh, shoot, I haven't reviewed this yet? Let me rectify ...

Dengjian Jin's The Dynamics of Knowledge Regimes: Techonlogy, Culture and Competitiveness in the USA and Japan illustrates a relatively simple case in cultural comparisons. The book is Jin's explanation of the competitive differences between the US and Japan. He notes that previous explanations of Japan's rise fail to explain the current stasis of that economy. Those explanations approach the problem from neoclassical, revisionist, institutional, cultural, technological, and complexity schools of thought, among which the revisionist and complexity schools might be counted as Second Best approaches, the former noting the importance of industrial policy, and the latter noting issues like path dependency. Jin, on the other hand, focuses less on trade and transaction and more on the way in which each culture creates, stores, transmits, and uses knowledge. Each culture has its distinctive isomorphic regime (to use his phraseology), and the two regimes are nearly mutually exclusive.

In Jin's description, the cultures can be identified along the relationship and identity axes, with Japanese falling more into connectual and contextual while Americans fall more into contractual and individual. In those terms, Williamson's (The Economic Institutions of Capitalism) contractual schema have little to do with the Japanese experience and therefore are relegated to the status of a subset of the possible relationship schema. The American knowledge regime both results in and encourages the creation of isolated, modularized, disconnected, universal knowledge, while the Japanese regime results in and encourages the creation of highly contextualized, tacit, specific knowledge. Jin also notes that the relationship between the state and industry tends to fall into the same isomorphic pattern, with Japanese government working very closely with the affected industries and American government working (or appearing to work) in a universalist relationship, i.e. DARPA awards contracts for knowledge creation in a competitive bid process while MITI would work closely with an alliance on a development project. Jin's book explores these ideas in detail and also shows how this produces competitive advantage for each culture in distinct sectors. For example, the American approach results in leadership in sectors such as software and biotechnology where talent and knowledge can be modularized and reconfigured endlessly, while the Japanese approach results in leadership in complex fabrication and assembly such as automobile and opto-electronics.

So whereas Americans work with a system which emphasizes contracting, Japanese work within a system which emphasizes long-term relationship building. Asymmetric knowledge and opportunistic breach of contract are therefore rarely a problem in Japan. On the other hand, network effects certainly are a strong problem for the Japanese while the creative destruction machine that is modern America blows through network effects rapidly (and the process appears to be accelerating). Thus, a problem that worries the second-besters in one culture doesn't even make it on to the radar in the other regime.

Now pull back a little and realize that Jin was only comparing dominant Japanese and US knowledge regimes. What would be the result of a similar study of all cultures? Or of subordinate cultures within the US, Japan, and other dominant culture types? Also, the Japanese emphasize tacit knowledge, some of which is destroyed by the simple act of trying to objectify and communicate it, so it is not even clear that we could understand all of the institutional failures in our own culture that a Japanese would note, and vice versa. What would happen if we were to be able to look at our own institutions not only in terms of Japanese understanding, but of all existing, or of all possible cultures?

Unfortunately, I thought the book got a little repetitive. I suspect this was a doctoral thesis published as a book; nothing wrong with that per se, but people tend to become stronger writers once they get out of the pressure of graduate school. I really wish Jin would write a follow-up to this and do more comparison with other knowledge regimes; he alluded to the Chinese knowledge regime as being distinct from both the Japanese and US regimes, and that seems like it would be a worthwhile project. Hint, hint.

4.0 out of 5 stars Dengjian Strikes Again, August 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dynamics of Knowledge Regimes: Techonlogy, Culture and Competitiveness in the USA and Japan (Hardcover)

Ahh yes another Jin masterpiece. This book really gets to the hart of the cultural and thus organizational differences between Japan and The United States. Jin paints for us an image of the Japan's staunch workforce and management system contrasted with the languid, melancholic, and jocular laborer of the U.S. Jin eventually concludes that while U.S. business has been dominate over the last 30 years it is only a matter of time before Japan (complete with arsenal of Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and Rodan) will soon raighn again. Great book for those who want to find out about culture. "Das a good point!"

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jin Rocks!, August 13, 2003

By 

"johhny565" (Carlisle, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dynamics of Knowledge Regimes: Techonlogy, Culture and Competitiveness in the USA and Japan (Hardcover)

Ahh yes another Jin masterpiece. This book really gets to the hart of the cultural and thus organizational differences between Japan and The United States. Jin paints for us an image of the Japan's staunch workforce and management system contrasted with the languid, melancholic, and jocular laborer of the U.S. Jin eventually concludes that while U.S. business has been dominate over the last 30 years it is only a matter of time before Japan (complete with arsenal of Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and Rodan) will soon raighn again. Great book for those who want to find out about culture. "Das a good point!"