Co-presented by the Japan-America Society of Dallas/Fort Worth and the Sun & Star Program on Japan and East Asia at SMU’s Tower Center for Public Policy and International Studies.

How have Japan’s leading companies reacted to the rise of China, and the need to compete differently in a globalized economy? As they lost their competitive advantage in consumer end products, many Japanese corporates have quietly repositioned to supply critical input components and advanced materials to various industries. Even though they do not carry a “Japan Inside” label, most of our daily-use gadgets and machines would not exist or function as well without Japan. Ulrike Schaede will introduce her concept of the “aggregate niche strategy” and show how Japan’s reinvention has changed the trade dynamics within Asia.

About the Speaker

Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California, San Diego, School of Global Policy and Strategy. She is the Director of JFIT (Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology) where she organizes a weekly “Japan Zoominar” on current issues on Japan. Schaede works on Japan’s changing corporate strategies, including business culture, change management, employment practices, the rise of private equity, corporate governance, and manufacturing and innovation under the digital transformation. She has written extensively on Japanese business organization, and is the author of The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan (Stanford University Press, 2020) as well as Choose and Focus: Japanese Business Strategies for the 21st Century (Cornell UP, 2008). She holds a PhD in Japan Studies and Economics from Marburg University, Germany.

Co-presented with