The evolution of the ICT start-up ecosystem in Japan: From Corporate Logic to Venture Logic?

The Japanese economy and business have changed over the past several decades, and these changes are captured differently by economists, political scientists, and management scholars. Among the latter, organization theorists employing institutional theory potentially have a lot to contribute. This chapter aims to further our understanding of the evolution of the Japanese business system by applying the notion of institutional logics to the ICT (information and communication technologies) start-up ecosystem in Japan. The ICT start-up ecosystem is an ideal setting to study incremental institutional change, as it is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Japanese economy with high rates of entry and exit, facilitating the observation of the emergence of new logics and practices. We aim to shed light on institutional change in the Japanese business system by studying how a new institutional logic emerged over a period of three decades and by identifying the reasons why two logics, old and new, coexist in a field.