KEIO RESEARCHERS INFORMATION SYSTEM

Profile 【 Display / hide 】

Profile 【 Display / hide 】

• Masahiro Kotosaka is an Associate Professor at Keio University and an Associate Fellow of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. He is an expert in Internationalization strategy and early-stage business development, and advisor to several global start-up/multinational companies.
  Before moving to Keio, he was an associate professor of multinational management at Ritsumeikan University, a teaching & research associate at the University of Oxford, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company based in Frankfurt and Tokyo. As a practitioner, he worked for strategy/marketing projects with sixteen client organizations across nine industries and nine countries and spent four years running three profitable IT/Retail businesses before joining McKinsey. He graduated from the University of Oxford with D.Phil. (Ph.D) in Management Studies and MSc in Management Research with Distinction.
  His current research focuses on: 1) how does the high-growth startup firm formulate and execute the strategic actions; and 2) how does the institutional filed influence the way in which entrepreneurs incubate the business.
  His recent publication includes STARTUP (Co-authored, NewsPicks Publishing, 2020), Raksul (Co-authored, HBS, 2019), The Element of Strategic Management (Toyo Keizai, 2018), and The Japanese Business in Evolution (Co-authored, Routledge, 2017).
  He is a keen yacht sailor and holds RYA/MCA Yachtmaster (Coastal). In spare time, He travels and visited nearly 100 countries so far.
  
  

Other Affiliation 【 Display / hide 】

Other Affiliation 【 Display / hide 】

• Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Associate Fellow

• Graduate School of Media and Governance, Committee member

Career 【 Display / hide 】

Career 【 Display / hide 】

• 2023

  -

  Present

  SRE Holdings, External Director

• 2018

  -

  Present

  Euglena, Inc., External Director

• 2017

  -

  Present

  Raksul, Inc., External Director (A member of Audit committee)

• 2017

  -

  Present

  Gojo & Company, External Director

• 2015

  -

  Present

  Appirits, Inc., External Director

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Academic Background 【 Display / hide 】

Academic Background 【 Display / hide 】

• 2000.09

  -

  2004.08

  慶応義塾大学, 環境情報学部, 環境情報学科

  University, Graduated, Other

• 2008.10

  -

  2009.09

  University of Oxford, Said Business School, MSc. Management Research

  United Kingdom, Graduate School, Completed, Master's course

• 2009.10

  -

  2013.03

  University of Oxford, Said Business School, D.Phil. in Management Studies

  United Kingdom, Graduate School, Completed, Doctoral course

Academic Degrees 【 Display / hide 】

Academic Degrees 【 Display / hide 】

• MSc. Management Research with Distinction, University of Oxford, Coursework, 2009.09

• D.Phil. in Management Studies, University of Oxford, Coursework, 2013.08

Research Areas 【 Display / hide 】

Research Areas 【 Display / hide 】

• Humanities & Social Sciences / Business administration

Research Keywords 【 Display / hide 】

Research Keywords 【 Display / hide 】

• International Management

• Strategy

• Entrepreneurial Management

Books 【 Display / hide 】

Books 【 Display / hide 】

• Social Innovation: Theory and Practice

  Masahiro Kotosaka, Gen Miyagaki, Keio University Press, 2023.03,  Page： 280

• The new global road map : enduring strategies for turbulent times

  パンカジュ・ゲマワット, 月谷真紀, 琴坂将広, Toyo Keizai, 2020.10,  Page： 299

  Original author： Ghemawat, Pankaj

• Startup

  Shinichiro Hori, Masahiro Kotosaka, Daichi Inoue, NewsPicks Publishing, 2020.05,  Page： 509

• The Essence of Strategic Management

  Kotosaka, M., Toyo Keizai, 2018

• Japanese Management in Evolution New Directions, Breaks, and Emerging Practices

  Kotosaka, M., Sako, M., Routledge, 2017

  Contact page： 237-161

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Papers 【 Display / hide 】

Papers 【 Display / hide 】

• When professionals become entrepreneurs: identity construction of lawtech startup founders in Japan

  Masashi Goto, Masahiro Kotosaka, Mari Sako

  Journal of Professions and Organization （Oxford University Press)   2024.04

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted,  ISSN  20518803

  　View Summary

  How do professionals develop their identity when they become digital venture founders, and how does such identity affect their venture strategy? This article examines this understudied yet important question. The recent wave of digitalization has created opportunities for various professionals to participate in creating new firms. However, studies of professions and entrepreneurship to date have narrowly focused on professionals’ intrapreneurship efforts within professional service firms (PSFs). This inductive study of lawtech ventures in Japan examines the sources of Founder Social Identity (FSI). The study shows that founders’ professional role identity developed during prior work experience influences their identity work to become an entrepreneur; moreover, the resulting FSI shapes founders’ strategic decisions on market segment choice. This study highlights the significance of a distinct type of FSI, which we call ‘professional communitarian’, for professionals who engage in entrepreneurship beyond the boundary of PSFs.

• When Top Managers’ Temporal Orientations Collide: Middle Managers and the Strategic Use of the Past

  Innan Sasaki, Masahiro Kotosaka, Alfredo De Massis

  Organization Studies （European Group for Organizational Studies)   2024.02

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted,  ISSN  01708406

  　View Summary

  Use-of-the-past research has advanced our understanding of how top managers instrumentalize past knowledge, events and rhetorical constructions to advance their present-day interests. However, it is unclear how they use the past when they have divergent understandings of the past and different visions of the future. Temporal tensions can lead to a period of unsettlement in organizations, undermine the top management’s power base, and open up space for middle managers to take a central role in using the past. Through a longitudinal case study of a Japanese craft firm with a history of over 200 years, we examine how middle managers progressively take an active role in using the past through three processes: temporal mobility, temporal socialization and coalescing the past. Our findings challenge the somewhat linear conception of time in the use-of-the-past literature by elucidating the emergent, in-the-moment evolution of middle managers’ strategic use of the past. By adopting a process-analytic lens, our findings extend current understanding of the strategic use of the past as not undertaken by a few powerful individuals in a given moment, but a continually changing process enacted by multiple middle managers with different temporal orientations. Moreover, our findings contribute to the use-of-the-past literature by taking a relational perspective of temporality. Finally, we reconceptualize the strategic flexibility of middle managers from a temporality perspective, showing that they can alter the temporal orientations of those at the top and the bottom.

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• Environmental uncertainty and the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship among East Asian new technology-based firms: an institutional perspective

  Martin Hemmert, Adam R. Cross, Ying Cheng, Jae-Jin Kim, Masahiro Kotosaka, Franz Waldenberger & Leven J. Zheng

  Asian Business and Management （Asian Business and Management)  22 （ 4 ） 1683 - 1711 2023.04

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted,  ISSN  14724782

  　View Summary

  Most extant research on the performance implications of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has focused on established firms and on firm-specific and organizational factors. We contribute to EO research by studying the performance effects of EO sub-dimensions on the performance of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) and by examining environmental uncertainty, which is related to national institutional development, as an important boundary condition in an East Asian context. We analyze survey data from 2023 NTBFs in China, South Korea, and Japan and find that while the NTBFs’ performance is positively related to their entrepreneurial behavior, it is negatively related to their managerial attitude toward risk-taking. Furthermore, the positive performance effect of entrepreneurial behavior is weakened by environmental uncertainty, which is higher in China than in South Korea and Japan. Our findings suggest that for NTBFs, the performance implications of EO sub-dimensions need to be studied separately.

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• Corporate Values Alignment: Ideation, Codification, and Co-Creation

  Masahiro Kotosaka, Jonathan Trevor

  Diamond Harvard Business Review （Diamond, Inc.)  48 （ 4 ） 48 - 61 2023.03

  Research paper (bulletin of university, research institution), Joint Work, Lead author, Corresponding author

• The influence of founders’ human capital on the performance of new technology-based firms in China, South Korea and Japan: an exploratory study

  Martin Hemmert, Adam R. Cross, Ying Cheng, Jae-Jin Kim, Masahiro Kotosaka, Franz Waldenberger & Leven J. Zheng

  Asia Pacific Business Review （Taylor & Francis Group)   2022.12

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted,  ISSN  13602381

  　View Summary

  Western-based research suggests a modest influence of founders’ human capital on the business performance of new technology-based firms (NTBFs). Our exploratory, longitudinal study of 40 NTBFs in China, South Korea and Japan reveals that the human capital of their founders helps them to acquire executive talent, finance and customers, and thereby strongly enhances business performance. Furthermore, we find that East Asian NTBF founders leverage their human capital through networks with former colleagues and business partners in order to access key resources. These findings can be explained by cultural background factors such as social stratification and relational orientation.

  • Access to Document (DOI)

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Papers, etc., Registered in KOARA 【 Display / hide 】

Papers, etc., Registered in KOARA 【 Display / hide 】

• The Heisei era for Japanese entrepreneurs

  Kotosaka, Masahiro

  Keio SFC journal （慶應義塾大学湘南藤沢学会)  18 （ 1 ） 106 - 126 2018

  ISSN  13472828

• Reviewing Heisei era : its outcomes and heritages

  Kotosaka, Masahiro

  Keio SFC journal （慶應義塾大学湘南藤沢学会)  18 （ 1 ） 6 - 35 2018

  ISSN  13472828

Reviews, Commentaries, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

Reviews, Commentaries, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

• How Can we create the inflection point: findings from the initial research of "tipping points"

  Masahiro Kotosaka, Yumei Yamakawa

  VEC Year Book 2023 (Venture Enterprise Center)     I-188 - I-194 2023.12

  Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work, Lead author, Corresponding author

• How Shuold We Face and Utilize Business Pivots Effectively?

  Masahiro Kotosaka, Yuya Tsuha

  VEC Year Book 2022 (Venture Enterprise Center)     I-115 - I-124 2022.12

  Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Lead author, Corresponding author

• Nurturing Entrepreneurs: The Value of Mentoring Among Entrepreneurs

  Masahiro Kotosaka, Ayumi Yamamoto, Riana Yachi, Ryosuke Yamamoto

  VEC Year Book 2021 (Venture Enterprise Center)     I-87 - I-93 2021.12

  Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Lead author, Corresponding author

• 成功する「ビジネスモデル」は何が違うのか：優れた起業家の創業行動調査から

  琴坂将広, 井上大智

  VEC Year Book 2020 (Venture Enterprise Center)     I-67 - I-72 2020.12

  Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other)

• Large Firms and ICT Startups in Japan – The New Forms of the Relationship

  Kotosaka, M.

  VEC Yearbook 2018: Annual Report on Japanese Startup Businesses (VEC)     51 - 57 2019

  Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (bulletin of university, research institution), Single Work

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Presentations 【 Display / hide 】

Presentations 【 Display / hide 】

• Does the DEI DNA Proliferate to Nascent Field?: Female and Minority Founders’ Identity Formation and Field Level Institutional Change

  Yukiko Mitomi, Masahiro Kotosaka

  SASE Rio de Janeiro 2023 (Ro de Janeiro) , 

  2023.07

  , 

  Oral presentation (general), Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics

• The Effects of Foreign Market Knowledge, International Orientation and Home Country Characteristics on the International Performance of East Asian New Technology-Based Firms

  Martin Hemmert, Leven J. Zheng, Masahiro Kotosaka, Ying Cheng, Adam R. Cross, Jae-Jin Kim, Franz Waldenberger

  AIB 2023 Warsaw Conference (Warsaw) , 

  2023.07

  , 

  Oral presentation (general), Academy of International Business

• Strategic Choices in International Entrepreneurship

  Masahiro Kotosaka

  AIB 2023 Warsaw Conference (Warsaw) , 

  2023.07

  , 

  Other, Academy of International Business

• International New Venture Entrepreneurship in East Asia: The Potential, the Challenges and the Future

  Martin Hemmert, Ying Cheng, Masahiro Kotosaka, Agata Kapturkiewicz, Leven J. Zheng

  AIB 2023 Warsaw Conference (Warsaw) , 

  2023.07

  , 

  Symposium, workshop panel (public), Academy of International Business

• The Unspoken Value of Peer Mentoring among Novice Entrepreneurs: Learning, Networking, and Beyond

  Yamamoto, A., Yachi, R.,, Arjanti, M., R., Yamamoto, R., Kotosaka, M.

  42nd Strategic Management Society Annual Conference (London) , 

  2022.09

  , 

  Oral presentation (general), Strategic Management Society

  　View Summary

  As entrepreneurship development programs are becoming more popular, mentoring is gaining attention for its role in facilitating entrepreneurial learning. In recent years, serial-to-novice entrepreneur mentoring research has flourished, and understanding of mentoring functions has increased. However, it is still unclear what results can be achieved by peer mentoring between novice entrepreneurs. In order to address this gap, this study observed a Japanese entrepreneurship development program called MAKERS UNIVERSITY. The results showed similar findings to previous studies and also confirmed the existence of secondary effects among novice mentoring groups. Strong psychological support may also occur in peer mentoring between novice entrepreneurs. In the long term, the continued interaction between novice entrepreneurs has the potential to support the next generation of entrepreneurs and society as a whole.

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Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

• Innovation of professions through digitalization

  2023.04

  -

  2027.03

  MEXT,JSPS, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Masashi Goto, Masahiro Kotosaka, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Research grant, Coinvestigator(s)

• Searching for the elements of emergent strategy: an empirical study of start-ups and multinationals

  2018.04

  -

  2023.03

  MEXT,JSPS, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists , Research grant, Principal investigator

• Born Globals and Professionals: Acquiring Organisational Capabilities in the process of rapid internationalisation

  2015.04

  -

  2018.03

  Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Masahiro Kotosaka, Research grant, Principal investigator

Works 【 Display / hide 】

Works 【 Display / hide 】

• Raksul

  • Kominers, D. S., Kotosaka, M., KANNO, A.

  Harvard Business School Case, 

  2019

  , 

  Educational material, Joint

• The new form of alliance between startups and large companies (in Japanese)

  琴坂将広

  The Nikkei, morning edition , 

  2018.09

  , 

  Other, Single

• Decoding Strategic Management - from the ravine between theory and practice (in Japanese)

  Kotosaka, M.

  Harvard Business Review Online, 

  2016.11

  -

  2017.12

  , 

  Other, Single

• Borderless Management - navigating the complex globalised economy (in Japanese)

  Kotosaka, M.

  Nikkei Business Online, 

  2014.12

  -

  2015.12

  , 

  Other, Single

• The Discipline of Crossing Borders (in Japanese)

  Kotosaka, M.

  Diamond Online, 

  2014.03

  -

  2014.05

  , 

  Other, Single

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Awards 【 Display / hide 】

Awards 【 Display / hide 】

• AY2021 SFC FACULTY AWARD

  2022.04, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Keio University

  Type of Award： Keio commendation etc.

  　View Description

  SFCの教育研究活動における顕著な成果の表彰

• AY2020 SFC FACULTY AWARD

  2021.04, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Keio University

  Type of Award： Keio commendation etc.

  　View Description

  SFCの教育研究活動における特に顕著な成果の表彰

Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

• WORKSHOPS ON PRACTICAL MARKETING ANALYSIS

  2024

• WORKSHOPS ON PRACTICAL BUSINESS MODEL ANALYSIS

  2024

• STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

  2024

• STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

  2024

• SEMINAR B

  2024

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Courses Previously Taught 【 Display / hide 】

Courses Previously Taught 【 Display / hide 】

• 国際経営論

  立命館大学

  2018.04

  -

  2019.03

• 日本事情特殊講義

  立命館大学

  2018.04

  -

  2019.03

• 国際経営戦略

  立命館大学

  2018.04

  -

  2019.03

• Multinational Management

  Keio University

  2016.04

  -

  2017.03

  , 

  Autumn Semester, Lecture, Within own ｆaculty, 1h, 15people

• International Business

  Keio University

  2016.04

  -

  2017.03

  , 

  Autumn Semester, Lecture, Within own ｆaculty, 1h, 50people

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Memberships in Academic Societies 【 Display / hide 】

Memberships in Academic Societies 【 Display / hide 】

• Academy of International Business

  　

• Academy of Management

  　

• Society of the Advancement of Socio-Economics

  　

• Strategic Management Society

  　

Committee Experiences 【 Display / hide 】

Committee Experiences 【 Display / hide 】

• 2021.06

  -

  Present

  公益財団法人日産財団　評議員, 公益財団法人日産財団

• 2021.05

  -

  2024.05

  官民研究開発投資拡大プログラム審査・評価委員会 新SBIR制度加速事業分科会　委員, 内閣府

• 2019.07

  -

  2019.10

  日本版ＳＢＩＲ制度の見直しに向けた検討会　委員, 経済産業省中小企業庁