Lecture subjects and syllabi
(Master Degree)

The aim of this lecture is to provide students with the minimum knowledge about the principals and various concepts that will form the foundation on which the strategies of technology management will be built.

In concrete terms, we take up innovation models, the forms that innovation takes in different fields, the accumulation of technological competitiveness, technology diversification strategies, management of a technology portfolio, strategies for technical tie-ups, the tools used in technology management, and the management of R&D. The class is conducted via group work, debates, writing papers and making presentations.

This lecture takes up various issues individually related to technology management strategies at the levels of companies, sectors and national innovation systems.

More specifically, based on experimental study, we look at a variety of high tech industries from the perspective of technology management strategic theory—information & communications, consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, telecom services, robots and so on. We also look at globalization and national innovation systems.

This lecture also takes the form of case studies, as well as discussion and debates, presentations and writing papers.

(Taking Strategic Management of Technology is recommended prior to taking this lecture.)

This class is conducted by looking at the why's and how's that companies came into being and developed in Japan, what their managers were thinking of at various junctures, and what kind of reasoning they used in making their business judgments.

(Not offered in 2008)

Based on a simple definition of innovation, namely it being an action for reformation that entails success economically, we explain the likelihood of choosing a reform (innovation) that entails an economic success from possible reform options, as well as the probability of the innovation.

We take relationships between product development and the market which addresses correlations between the design parameters, the product functions, utility for the customer and market value, and organize them based on their technological structure. We also take up relatively new concepts such as platform leadership and modularization.

When we think of R&D strategies, we can classify them into the basic concepts of Science, Technology, Research, Development, Fundamentals and Application. We have the students learn the structure of technology as a generalized concept without getting hung up on the details of individual technologies.

Then, from the perspective of building a system of products by integrating constituent technologies, we organize the roles and handling of scientific knowledge, technical knowledge and technical skills. After we have clarified the meanings of linear models, secondary basic research and generic technology, the lecture covers technology marketing and strategic collaboration in terms of their meaning and what they should be like.

Nowadays, collaboration with universities and the government have become extremely important to corporate innovation. We take up the background that innovation creation by the collaboration between industry, government and academia is required; a basic concept of the collaboration mentioned above; innovation policies and systems for promoting the collaboration; and the real-life example of the collaboration between industry, government and academia in Silicon Valley.  By those studies, students will understand the significance and management of the collaboration.

This lecture examines R&D and innovation in the context of the high tech fields of scientific technologies. Students also learn about the processes of discovery, invention and innovation of their research themes. We will introduce 5 to 6 of these high tech fields every year in rotation: condensed matter physics, applied chemistry, mechanical physics, production engineering, robotics engineering, physical electronics, electrical & electronic engineering, bio-technology, nano-technology, environmental informatics, computational engineering, etc. This lecture is not aimed at students in a specific field, but is taught in an easy-to-understand way for students outside the major.

Students will learn about standardization which plays an important role as a strategic tool within the innovation process of bringing new technologies to market. Students will come to understand the basic concepts of standardization, the importance of standardization in business, the relationship between standards and intellectual property rights and the relationship between global business and certification systems. In addition, students will learn standardization methodologies based on case studies so they can use standardization as a strategic tool for innovation.

In this lecture, we invite senior executives to lecture on how business in general and technology should be managed and what it takes to be an excellent practitioner of MOT. Students learn from the guest lectures themselves and recaps of representative questions, debates and discussions.

Leadership is developed via group activities.

Guests are invited from companies that are doing an outstanding job of technology management. Students learn practical principles and methods about the management of innovation creation via lectures on concrete examples of business practice, as well as through question and answer sessions and discussions in class.

In addition to understanding competency as an important factor in management skills, in a historical sense of its psychological developmental process, we also take an overview of how competency theory developed in the United States. Then, students gain a basic knowledge of the essential competencies which have been systematized to date and the competencies required for each work category. As practical training, students take roles in the work they expect to be doing in future as an example and decide on the competency model that will be needed to perform that work via a group discussion. It is possible to position this training as an educational aid in mastering the abilities to take action voluntarily, based on one's own values.

Furthermore, it helps to make people with a technical background aware of the need to develop their own competencies, as they will need them when they face management challenges.

The global spread of the internet has enabled producers to directly connect with their consumers and swept away many restrictions and limits to market access.

As a result, a number of new business models have been hatched to cope with this net society. Here we will use examples to study the new business models and make a comparative analysis with existing business models with regard to their priorities and problems. We will also take up how those new business models can be applied to existing businesses.

With innovation, there is a need for “create value” or “acquire value,” but a duty with a greater priority for engineers is to avoid the damage that science and technology can bring with them. While each and every one of us takes pride in being an engineer, we have to act in accordance with our ethics in order to fulfill this duty. In addition, if a company is to maximize profits over the long term, it is imperative to employ risk management.

In this lecture, we bring up detailed examples and students will learn engineering ethics and risk management via debates on the risks that technology bears and how engineers behave.

In this lecture, we have the students study the importance of intellectual property rights using the United States' pro-patent policies and the intellectual property strategies hammered out by the nation and companies.

Also, the lecture provides a detailed explanation of the significance of building a patent portfolio, which becomes the basis of the strength of intellectual property, creating an invention based on this and strategies for how to utilize the rights secured for the invention. We also discuss how indispensable it is to introduce intellectual property management in order to decide on and implement intellectual property strategies at universities and/or companies.

Students will deepen their understanding through specific examples of corporate intellectual property strategies and actual disputes.

During this process, students will submit reports as well as engage in group discussions.

Students will gain knowledge of laws related to intellectual property rights that form the foundation for protecting and utilizing intellectual property as a right.

We first take an overview of intellectual property law in general and look at industrial property laws such as patent law, trademarks laws, and copyright law as well as other related laws and treaties.

Students will come to understand the R&D and intellectual property strategies of some influential companies and learn how the R&D and intellectual property strategies should be linked with each other in order to optimize the creation, securing of rights and utilization of an invention. Study materials used for this class have been collected from hearings and questionnaires about the real-life R&D strategies and intellectual property strategies of influential companies and their related organizations, as well as the results of their intellectual property activities. From these materials, and especially from case studies in which intellectual property activities made substantial contributions to company profit, the students will learn the necessary conditions for constructing systems for implementing intellectual property strategies in a desirable way.

We construe the actual circumstances of a company from a view of the collaboration between R&D strategies and intellectual property strategies, the importance of which will increase more and more in the future. Students will garner knowledge of both practice and practicality from the case studies.

If intellectual property is to contribute to the strength and growth of a business, the intellectual property activities have to exist in close proximity to corporate management and take an active role in the execution of management strategies. We not only conduct the intellectual property activities specialized in technical knowledge but also consider goals for corporate management and the management direction necessary to achieve them. In other words, there needs to be integration between the intellectual property activities and corporate management. As a way to achieve this, we train our students so they can link the intellectual property activities with the corporate management. During group discussion we use a given company as a case study to reflect established management goals within the intellectual property activities.

Further, students study about the intellectual property activities in each functional division of a company, such as manufacturing, sales, human resources and finance. They garner the knowledge that is necessary to plan for the effective use of the intellectual property that the entire group of companies owns.

This lecture gives methodology for thinking. Students systematically lean higher order structure and framework of knowledge. It includes diverse styles of thinking from descriptive, analytic, logical, critical, creative, design, and organizational ones. Selected topics in business and innovation are illustrated to learn literacy on management of technology, in addition to theoretical aspects of knowledge framework and thinking styles.

This lecture gives methodologies of data analysis and examples of analysis in technology management. Students learn theory and scope of application of each methodology. The methodologies include text analysis, link analysis, machine learning, statistics, decision analysis, and cost-benefit analysis. The limitations and tools for those analyses are also presented. The students also learn how to apply data analysis in real business and organizational context.

This lecture aims for a full understanding both in theory and practice of the problem of the infringement of intellectual property rights as it arises today in the field of intellectual property law.

The issue of infringement of intellectual property rights is one of the central areas of the practice of intellectual property law, as well as being a very practical area. We aim to gain a practical understanding of the standards by which infringement judgments are actually made by examining actual cases and their judicial judgments.

This lecture introduces the theory of financial derivatives, which are fundamental to mathematical finance of the present day. In discussing financial derivatives, we will look at where they come from and how they are handled in financial institutions.

In the management of technology, important themes are the methods for decision making on investment at the stages of R&D and/or product development, as well as how to raise funds for them. How to solve these problems cannot be divorced from a company's financial strategies.  

The main themes of this lecture are:

• Practical methods for assessing the value of assets, such as stocks and bonds
• The financial strategies for technology management from the perspective of risk assessment methods used by financial organizations, which provide financing capital.
• In light of the risks involved in an R&D project, such as that of technology, changes in cash flow, etc., how to analyze the real options in investment strategies (continue, postpone, discontinue) and fundraising strategies to match.

Through these themes we present actual case studies, and introduce the latest research papers so students learn the basic principles of corporate finance.

In line with the shift from an industrial society to an information and knowledge society, There are demands for quick responses to rapid changes in markets and organizational structures that are highly cost efficient. Here students will learn about organizational structures that can meet these kinds of demands.

Furthermore, students learn about organizational restructuring and organizational renovation as parts of organizational strategy. We have students learn how to use IT as transitional tools when an organization is moving from an existing structure to a new one.

They also learn about the role of IT as a strategic business tool in our information and knowledge society.

Students learn the whole story about the concept of telework and the changes of its definition since its birth in the latter period of the 1960s up to the present day. They will learn the application fields of the telework. They will also understand why the telework is paced as a mode of work in the twenty-first century in developed countries and why the spread of telework is picked up on as a national strategy by many countries including Japan. We also have students learn about methods for utilizing teleworking in order to reform an organization or for regional activation via specific examples.

As a challenging problem in putting MOT into practice, we have to take a financial perspective and bundle it with complex risk factors, which arise from uncertainties, such as the environment and technology reform, and quantify them in a concrete manner. In particular, how we quantify and manage the risk of fluctuation in real estate prices and interest, which are directly related to price changes of assets and debts, and risks related to the financial stability of leveraged business client are important issues we cannot ignore.

In this lecture, the methods for quantifying the following risks are explained.

• Market risks related to price fluctuations and/or liquidity of financial asset holdings (stocks, bonds, real estate) and/or liabilities.
• Credit risk dealing with losses arising from the non-payment and/or bankruptcy of customers.
• Operational risks related to human error or system errors.

After explaining the general concepts as well as concrete measurement methods, students will experience a series of processes from risk measurement to management using actual data, and thus deepen their understanding.

(Not offered in 2008)

The theory of term structure of interest rates is one area of the mathematical finance field and it is essential to understand this theory especially in market risk management at banks. In addition, as this theory draws a great deal of interest in mathematics, a number of researches have been done on it. It is a very important and successful theory in the field of mathematical finance. However, because of its mathematical difficulties, it is a rare thing indeed to come across this theory in a text aimed at the beginner.

The lecture aims at the absolute beginner to mathematical finance and we introduce the theory of interest rates from the foundations right on through to leading theories, without leaving anything out along the way. The Ito integral from probability theory is an essential tool. During lecture, we will explain this at the beginning (we will abridge a detailed discussion of it) until students are able to make the calculations themselves.

When the theory of financial engineering is applied in practice, it is necessary to find a solution for a specific numerical value. When it is a problem that has an analytic solution, then the numerical operation is a simple thing. However, when the more complicated model is used for approaching reality, it is often the case that an analytical solution cannot be found. That is where it is necessary to have technology in numerical computation. In this lecture, we primarily explain the methods for making numerical computation related to the pricing of options. More specifically, we focus on the grid method, the finite difference method and the Monte Carlo method.

Risk management is evolving in a variety of ways within our financial institutions. In this lecture, we address not only practical questions, such as what kind of risk management is ideally wanted or why it cannot be achieved in reality now and so on, but we also come to grips with the theoretical, technological and practical issues that risk management takes on.

This course covers interest term structure models and pricing of bonds and interest derivatives.

This lecture aims for an understanding of the necessity and importance of information security management, as well as the procedures for implementing it. It provides examples of information security incidents and their classification, drawing up information security policies, protection of personal information, structuring ISMS (information security management systems) and an overview of systems for evaluating conformity of an ISMS.

This course aims for students to acquire the basics of research literacy, namely the skills necessary for conducting surveys, analysis, experiments and thesis writing about a research topic. Primarily via seminars, students will learn how to read statistical materials, methods for conducting social research, basic data analysis methods and how to write research theses and papers.

This class is geared for students in the innovation management graduate program and we expect to have the following kinds of students.

• Those who have not completed courses in the field of statistics, or those who studied it a long time ago.
• Those who have never written a research thesis before, or those who have but a long time ago.

In Strategic Debating Skills, the aim is for students to learn debate skills through practice based on formal methods. Students are divided into pro and anti teams, they integrate their opinions and speak in a persuasive way and make counterarguments to their opponents.

This class is also geared for working students in the technology management program at the master's levels. It aims to develop strategic and creative management capabilities, which are relevant in the innovation creation cycle, via the guided writing of project theses which is taught in the seminar format.

Research 1 focuses on a survey of the literature about the theme of the research thesis of a project; guidance, which includes consultation, is provided about how to complete the course.

This class is also geared for working students in the technology management program at the master's levels. It aims to develop strategic and creative management capabilities, which are relevant in the innovation creation cycle, via the guided writing of project theses which is taught in the seminar format.

In Research 2, while confirming the status of student minors and/or participation in internships, the focus is on taking in the latest trends in related fields and students are guided for acquiring a broader perspective.

This class is also geared for working students in the technology management program at the master's levels. It aims to develop strategic and creative management capabilities, which are relevant in the innovation creation cycle, via the guided writing of project theses which is taught in the seminar format.

In Research 3, students select the topic of their project research thesis and they receive guidance on how to draw up their research plan, as well as how to collect and analyze the data in the process of their research.

This class is also geared for working students in the technology management program at the master's levels. It aims to develop strategic and creative management capabilities, which are relevant in the innovation creation cycle, via the guided writing of project theses which is taught in the seminar format.

In Research 4, students are given guidance so they can link the results of their research to practical applications via the creation of their project research thesis.

By having the students experience the management of technology at a company for one month, they develop their skills and leadership in the practice of technology management. Students may complete either I or II. Students must consult with supervisors prior to taking the class.

By having the students experience the management of technology in a company or joint research and/or experiments, etc., related to corporate activities for three months or longer, they develop the skills and leadership in the practice of technology management that are necessary for becoming a leader in MOT. Students may complete either III or IV. Students must consult with supervisors prior to taking the class.