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As revealed by Tapscott in his best-seller The Digital Economy published in 1994, the Internet has dramatically changed the way of conducting business and our daily lives. Further advancement of digital innovation, including cloud, mobile services, and artificial intelligence, has augmented this change significantly and provided us with extraordinary services and welfare never anticipated before. However, contrary to such an accomplishment, productivity in industrialized countries now confronts an apparent decline raising the question of a possible productivity paradox in the digital economy. The limitations of gross domestic product (GDP) statistics in measuring the advancement of the digital economy have become an important subject. While this mismatch is an old problem rooted in the dynamics of product innovations, since mismatch brought about by information and communication technology (ICT) is very strong, finding a solution to this critical issue has become highly crucial in the digital economy. Based on an intensive review of preceding studies and empirical analyses of national, industrial and individual behaviors in the digital economy, this paper attempted to draw a perspective on this critical issue. By means of an analysis of co-evolution among a shift in people's preferences from economic functionality to supra-functionality beyond economic value, the advancement of ICT and paradigm change to uncaptured GDP, a solution to this critical issue was investigated. New insights for measuring the digital economy were explored which provide insight into integration of national accounts with product-oriented micro-analysis efforts.

Confronting the simultaneous global economic stagnation that has resulted in diminishing consumption, a new driver which can instill in customers an exciting story with their own initiative and thrills them with gratification of consumption is essential. Japan's mobile phone driven innovation may provide a constructive suggestion to this requirement. On the basis of an empirical analysis focusing on the learning dynamism for innovative products in Japan's digital industry, this paper demonstrates the foregoing hypothetical anticipation. Based on measurement of dynamic learning coefficients for seven leading innovative products centered on mobile phones, the Granger causal test, Chow forecast test and wavelet analysis were conducted, and the significant role of mobile phones in leveraging broad dissemination, learning and absorption of core technologies essential to the advancement of digital industry was identified. Furthermore, significant role of demanding customers in inducing resonance between mobile phones learning and that of innovative products was demonstrated.

There has been a paradigm shift to a knowledge-oriented economy in the 21st century. Consequently, there has also been a shift in where innovation typically occurs. This shift has been from the production site toward the process of product diffusion. That is, innovation occurs more frequently at the point at which a product or service is moved into the marketplace where it is immediately modified through customer interaction. In this process, new “functionality” — services, the delivery method or even product changes occur in the diffusion process. Given the need to constantly create new value through new product “functionality” or new “functionality development”, firm strategy must address the issue of how to enhance innovation at this new locus — the diffusion process. Sustainable new functionality development over time has become crucial to a firm's competitiveness. In this context, firms have to develop new functionality as early and quickly as possible; leveraging whatever innovation exists in the marketplace. According to theory, the early emergence of functionality development in this context depends on a dynamic system in which the imitator (follower) is constantly substituting for the innovator (leader). This substitution corresponds to the dynamics observed in the process referred to as “open innovation”. According to this theory, functionality development through follower substitution for a leader would be critical for a firm's competitiveness in the open innovation environment. Furthermore, open innovation could be a process for sustaining the ongoing creation of new value through functionality development maximizing limited resources. This paper attempts to demonstrate this hypothesis through an empirical analysis of this process of substitution in major innovative goods and services in Japan.

While it is generally accepted that Information Technology (IT) has a self-propagating function which ensures that the more widespread its use, the greater its functionality, its emerging dynamism remains a black box. This paper attempts to shed some light on this dynamism through utilizing monthly trend data for the number of Japan's mobile phone subscribers over the last 12 years. A bi-logistic growth model demonstrating the diffusion trajectory initiated by both generations of mobile phones was constructed, with the goal of identifying the increase in the functionality development in the transition from traditional mobile phones with a simple communication function (1st wave mobile phone) to mobile phones with an Internet protocol function (2nd wave mobile phone). Through an empirical analysis utilizing the bi-logistic growth model, it was determined that the 2nd wave mobile phone emerged at an earlier stage of diffusion trajectory than the 1st stage mobile phone, which enabled a sustainable functionality development in Japan's mobile phones over the decade. Factors governing a dramatic decrease in mobile phones prices were analyzed, utilizing the result of the measurement of functionality development. This led to the discovery that while an increase in functionality development enhanced the price of mobile phones, this increase accelerated self-propagating diffusion, thereby enabling a dramatic reduction in prices through the effects of learning exercise and economies of scale. Based on the foregoing findings, the driving forces of self-propagating functionality development were analyzed, and it was determined that effective utilization of potential resources in innovation (e.g., assimilation of spillover technology and learning effects) is the key driving forces behind self-propagating functionality development.

Contrary to the decrease in operating income to sales (OIS) in Japan's electrical machinery firms, Canon has demonstrated its increasing trend with increase of its technological diversification. These contrasts and Canon's conspicuous functionality development suggest that a virtuous cycle between its technological diversification strategy and increase in OIS can be the source of its sustainable growth. Prompted by this hypothetical view, this paper attempts to assess Canon's sustainable growth trajectory by elucidating a mechanism of its technological diversification system through an effective utilization of potential resources in innovation. By means of an epidemic function, the new approach for assessing marginal productivity of technology as well as functionality development is developed. Utilizing this approach, comparative empirical analyses are conducted focusing on the consequence of technological diversification and development trajectory in Japan's leading electrical machinery firms over the last two decades.

Under the paradigm shift from an industrial society to an information society in the 1990s, contrary to the decrease of profits in Japan's electrical machinery firms, only Canon demonstrated its increasing trend. This contrasting performance corresponds to Canon's another contrast with respect to increasing technological diversification while reverse trends in other electrical machinery firms. These contrasts suggest us that Canon's technological diversification strategy can be the source of high level of its profits. Prompted by this hypothetical view, this paper analyzes Canon's scenario for sustainable growth and attempts to elucidate its technological diversification dynamism with special attention to its contribution to high level of profits. On the basis of the identification of the correlation between technological diversification and assimilation of spillover technology, comparative empirical analyses are conducted focusing on the consequence of technological diversification and development trajectory in Japan's leading electrical machinery firms over the last two decades.

This work is based on the postulate that the hierarchical order of technology development can be maintained by a subtle balance between technology waves having different lengths, and that the current collapse of the “virtuous cycle” between technology development and economic growth can be attributed to a stall in the balance of technology waves. This paper examines the subtle technolabor relationship of Japan's electrical machinery industry, and supports such phenomena by demonstrating the hierarchical impacts of the length of technology waves.

The Japanese economy has grown remarkably because of the driving force of industrial development. This has been largely attributed to the feedback loop between technological development and economic growth. Japan may now face the prospect of the loop's deconstruction, however, because industry's research and development (RD and fourth, it explains the structural background of a stagnation of R&D activities.