Technological fusion and telemedicine in Japanese companies

The extent of technological fusion has been widely regarded as a feature of Japanese companies. In this paper we look at the kinds of relationships ob served at the company level in the emerging area of telemedicine. The linka ges here are expected to be vertical between companies as well as horizonta l. The data are derived from Japanese databases on both publications and pa tents, using keywords to identify imaging and communications related techno logical fields. Using multidimensional scaling techniques, we find marked d istinctions at the company level between image and communications fields, a nd hence little evident fusion within companies, Using principal component analyses, we find specializations in imaging fields but greater clustering across communications fields. The latter are seen as providing the technolo gical infrastructure for the former to develop within. At the industry leve l, NTT publishes a higher proportion of papers than it takes out patents, a nd this provides scientific infrastructure for the overall system. Speciali st companies then undertake product development. Fusion thus takes place mo re at the industry level than the company level in telemedicine. (C) 2000 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.