TY - BOOK AU - Fujiwara,Masatoshi AU - Aoshima,Yaichi TI - Mechanisms for Long-Term Innovation: Technology and Business Development of Reverse Osmosis Membranes T2 - Advances in Japanese Business and Economics, SN - 9789811948961 U1 - 658.421 23 PY - 2022/// CY - Singapore PB - Springer Nature Singapore, Imprint: Springer KW - Entrepreneurship KW - New business enterprises KW - Management KW - Industries KW - Technology KW - History KW - Sustainability KW - Water KW - Hydrology KW - History of Technology N1 - The increasing demand for water treatment and reverse osmosis -- Technical overview of the RO membrane -- The beginnings of research in the public sector -- Development for commercialization by private companies -- The rise of Japanese companies N2 - This book explores how a long-term innovation can take place based on historical analyses of the development of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane from the early 1950s to the mid-2010s. The RO membrane is a critical material for desalination that is a key to solve water shortages becoming serious in many places of the world. The authors conducted in-depth field studies as well as analyses of rich archival data to demonstrate how researchers, engineers, managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers interacted each other for this material innovation to be realized. A series of historical analyses in this book uncovered that initial government supports, strategic niche markets, emergence of breakthrough technology, and company-specific rationales played significant roles for companies to overcome four types of uncertainty, technological, market, competition, and social/organizational ones, and enabled the companies to persistently invest in the development and commercialization of the RO membrane. This book depicts that innovation does not arise on a sudden, but that it is actualized through long lasting process with turns and twists, which is driven by many non-economic rationales beyond economic motives UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4896-1 ER -