UNIVERSITY SYSTEM AND INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS - SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE ON LINKAGE OF U.-INDUSTRY

摘要

Japan's economic recession has been lasted for more than a decade. Many researches addressed a series of fundamental issues on the nature of the sustained recession and how to revitalizing its industrial competitiveness and suggested pertinent institutional reforms [Kameoka, 1999; MITI, 2000]. Among these issues Japan's higher education (public tertiary education) exposed to the widespread dissatisfaction from the society. The latest IMD's annual report even ranked Japan's university education in the final place among the 47 nations surveyed for nation's competitiveness. It partially reflected people's subjective perceptions on the reality of university education within the nation's educational infrastructure that could not meet the needs of the second largest economy and their strong desires for better output of higher education system. Porter and Takeuchi [1999] pointed out that the universities are responsible for the many of uncompetitive industries in providing qualified graduates and producing original researches. Japanese university system has long been perplexing people. In Japan, university system is perceived as an important institution but it differs from U.S.A. and European countries in a number of major aspects. Japanese universities have been regarded only as providers of human resources by corporations for their own in-house research centers and production sites rather than as places to go to have research done [Low and Nakayama, 1999]. Japanese miracle to some extent benefited from the steady supply of specialized engineers by universities or colleges. Japanese education and training was believed as one of the most highly educated workforce in the world [Stainer, 1995]. When Japanese economy toke off in the 1960s and later reached growth peak in the 1970s, Elite bureaucrats and businessmen dominated policy-making [Lincoln, 1993]. Universities were further treated as devices screening potential employee as well as pre-educational units for economic organizations. Nevertheless, as one of three research instruments, Japanese universities unlike American counterparts have difficulty to compete with corporate research laboratories and national research institutions that belong to ministries of government [Nakayama and Low, 1997].