Globalisation and structural and demographic change are presenting Japan's economy and many regional economies with major challenges. In earlier decades, the international transfer of technology was an important factor in Japan's rise to become one of the leading industrialised nations. Today, however, the focus is on the interregional and intraregional transfer of technology between research institutions and private firms when addressing the issue of national and regional competitiveness. Regional innovation policies, in particular those under the responsibility of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and its regional bureaus, have for several years been making a great effort to promote the intraregional transfer of technology and business start-ups. This paper investigates the structure, the spatial reach and the innovation performance of R&D networks that have built up as part of a regional development programme financed by METI. A social network analysis is carried out using a unique data set of joint research projects of public research institutions, private firms and government institutions. The results show that the spatial patterns of R&D networks depend on the technical field of the research projects as well as on the role of the parties involved. Academia-academia cooperations have a much greater spatial reach than cooperations with private firms. The public sector plays an important role in local innovation processes.

This study focuses on the roles of informal networks and the actors who participate in business workshops and gatherings in industrial agglomerations in the Hamamatsu area of Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. There are numerous institutions for supporting industry in the Hamamatsu area and they organize workshops and contribute to the development of informal networks. This study applied social network analysis to the relational structures of informal networks using data on actors participation in business workshops. By making the relational structures visible and measuring the potential of informal networks, the following findings were obtained. First, some specific actors become knowledge carriers because they join multiple business workshops. Those actors may have novel knowledge and valuable market information and therefore play a critical role in innovation processes and developing formal networks such as collaborative R&D projects. Second, although long-term relationships can make the actors homogeneous and inefficient, in the Hamamatsu area they have not fallen into that trap. Long-distance joint actors and multiple participants maintain the fluidity and diversity of business workshops in the Hamamatsu area. They can avoid cognitive lock-in by maintaining channels of novel knowledge and information.

This paper focuses on knowledge linkages among global firms by applying social network analysis to interorganizational structures using the data on the results of the introduction of foreign investment into Japanese firms. In addition, using covariance structure analysis, the study considers the relationship between the network indices that depend on knowledge linkages and the performance of firms. The following findings were obtained. First, 18 industry sectors can be classified into six groups based on network indices such as the number of components and the average degree. The structures in complex networks that consist of many Japanese and foreign firms can be contracted or reduced by block modeling, and groups of nodes like global hubs, which play a crucial role in knowledge linking, are extracted. Second, by simultaneous analysis of multiple groups, it is shown that a network advantage results in the improved performance of firms. Furthermore, the influence of a network advantage works strongly in specific industry sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, electric equipment, motor vehicles, and precision instruments, that require scientific and analytical knowledge.

The AJG Library is published by Springer under the auspices of the Association of Japanese Geographers. This is a scholarly series of international standing. Given the multidisciplinary nature of geography, the objective of the series is to provide an invaluable source of information not only for geographers, but also for students, researchers, teachers, administrators, and professionals outside the discipline. Strong emphasis is placed on the theoretical and empirical understanding of the changing relationships between nature and human activities. The overall aim of the series is to provide readers throughout the world with stimulating and up-to-date scientific outcomes mainly by Japanese and other Asian geographers. Thus, an "Asian" flavor different from the Western way of thinking may be reflected in this series. The AJG Library will be available both in print and online via SpringerLink.