IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-540-75331-5_31.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Material Innovation in the Japanese Silver Market

In: The Silver Market Phenomenon

Author

Listed:
  • J. Tomita

    (Toyo University)

Abstract

By means of a case study, this chapter argues what the material innovation process in the Japanese silver market should be like. Material suppliers are continuously attempting to contribute to an aging society through material innovation. Although they are not always successful in their intentions to meet the needs of users, they at times discover the actual needs of the users, which are slightly different from the perceived needs.Subsequently, these suppliers work on improving the new materials so as to meet the actual needs of users by developing a close contact with them. The case of superabsorbent polymer (SAP), studied in this chapter, is a typical example of this. We term this material innovation process an emergent process. The SAP “AQUALIC CA” launched on the market by Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd., in 1983 is a raw material that facilitated the popularity of disposable diapers in the Japanese market. It also currently holds a large share in the American and European markets. However, it was not originally designed for use in disposable diapers, and the process it underwent from development to marketing was not linear. This case study describes how after failure in its technological development and supply agreements, success was finally achieved. Further, it indicates the effectiveness of developing evaluation technologies in the process through an end-user oriented approach. As a result, this study should prove to be a valuable aid in helping material suppliers in understanding effective innovation management.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Tomita, 2008. "Material Innovation in the Japanese Silver Market," Springer Books, in: Florian Kohlbacher & Cornelius Herstatt (ed.), The Silver Market Phenomenon, chapter 31, pages 453-468, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-75331-5_31
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-75331-5_31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-75331-5_31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.