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Introduction With the general availability of generative AI technology, how companies and other institutions should design their internal management environments in response to the increasingly digitalized external environment is an issue of the day. In this article, I would like to discuss relevant issues from the business strategy and administration perspective regarding standardization based on the Survey on Standardization Activities 2021 results (Tamura, 2023). The digitization of the modern economy is based on the increase in the volume of data distribution, which is possible thanks to the development of communications technology. To exchange data, it is necessary to commonalize communications technologies, which generally means standardizing technologies. The standardization discussed here refers to, for example, technical arrangements regarding communication over the Internet that are set up among multiple vendors and telecommunications carriers. The following discussion is based on the results of a questionnaire survey (Survey on Standardization Activities [SoSA] 2021) conducted by the author. The SoSA is a survey of standardization activities of Japanese companies and other entities and includes a survey item on managerial issues within the institutions. In particular, the degree of implementation of standardization activities and the ratio of respondents that have created departments that are responsible for managing standardization activities are the two main indicators in the SoSA for understanding standardization activities in an institution. Previously, measuring standardization activities within an institution was considered difficult (Tamura, 2012, 2013). In addition, qualitative research results on intellectual property departments and corporate strategy within institutions point out that due to changes in the external environment, patent management departments in Japanese firms are transforming their functions from administrative processing departments to strategy execution departments (Hirata et al., 2001). Similarly, the transformation of standardization organizations within Japanese institutions from administrative processing departments to strategy implementation departments has been observed, caused by changes in the external environment (Tamura, 2012). However, these analyses are based on individual case surveys and not based on quantitative data. This article discussed issues related to standardization using quantitative survey results. For future research related to standardization, it is important to accumulate time series data ranging multiple years so that time-series analysis becomes possible. SoSAs have been conducted four times between 2017 and 2020 before the current survey covering 2021, excluding this survey 2021(Tamura, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022a). This survey series is not a needs assessment survey of technologies to be standardized, which is generally conducted by standards development organizations (SDOs). This survey in 2021 follows the same format as the previous four surveys (Tamura, 2022b). The survey covered approximately 180 institutions. The survey was mailed directly to participating institutions, and respondents submitted their responses via e-mail or postal mail (i.e., this is not an online survey outsourced to an Internet survey company. It is a voluntary and uncompensated survey). Both electronic and postal submission methods were used to distribute and collect the questionnaires. The survey period was from January to March 2023. Approximately 180 questionnaires were sent out and 75 responses were received. The response rate was approximately 40%. 2. Results and Discussion 2.1. Degree of implementation of standardization activities (by industry category and R&D budget distribution) In the 2021 survey, the percentage of respondents implementing standardization activities was 68.8%, almost the same as the previous year (Table 1). When looking at changes over time using pooled data for the past five years, the results show that the increase is statistically significant (at the 5% level) (Tamura, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022a, 2023). By industry, the percentage of implementation is higher in the information and communications industry. As a general trend, the higher the R&D expenditures, the higher the implementation rate of standardization activities (Tables 2 and 3). Table 1. Practice of standardization activities Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017Figures in parentheses represent the results for the previous year, 2020. Table 2. Practice of standardization activities by industry [Click to enlarge] Table 2. Practice of standardization activities by industryNote: From the results of SoSA in 2017 Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017 Table 3. Practice of standardization activities by R&D budget [Click to enlarge] Table 3. Practice of standardization activities by R&D budgetNote: From the results of SoSA in 2017 Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017 2.2 Organization for standardization Activities (by industry category and R&D budget distribution) Forty-four respondents (about 44.0%) answered that they have a management system (organization) for standardization activities (Table 4). This result corresponds to the upward trend observed throughout the past four surveys (Tamura, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022a). However, when looking at changes over time using pooled data for the past five years, the results are not statistically significant (at the 5% level). By industry, the percentage of companies that reported having developed standardization management departments is high in the information and telecommunications industry and the electric machinery industry. As a general trend, the higher the R&D expenditures in the industry, the higher the percentage of companies that have developed departments that manage standardization activities (Tables 5 and 6). Table 4. Establishment of organizations for standardization activities Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017Figures in parentheses represent the results for the previous year, 2020 Table 5. Establishment of organizations for standardization activitiesby industry [Click to enlarge] Table 5. Establishment of organizations for standardization activitiesby industryNote: From the results of SoSA in 2017 Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017 Table 6. Establishment of organizations for standardization activities by R&D budget [Click to enlarge] Table 6. Establishment of organizations for standardization activities by R&D budgetNote: From the results of SoSA in 2017 Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017 2.3 Protection of R&D information and trade secrets One of the advantages of developing a department that manages standardization activities is that it facilitates company-wide standardization activities in a unified manner. Another advantage of organizational development is that it facilitates the formulation and operation of management policies that govern the administration of standardization activities within the institution. The survey also asked whether administrative guidelines overseeing standardization activities exist and whether these documents include provisions for managing research information. About 24% of the respondents had created and administered guidelines for supervising standardization activities. Furthermore, about 63% of those who created guidelines indicated that those guidelines include provisions for handling R&D information (Tamura, 2023). In this connection, the participants were surveyed in relation to how SDOs handled research information (Table 7). 15.5% responded that confidentiality of information is necessary, but nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are not required, or that confidentiality of information is not required. 12.1% of respondents answered that they had NDAs. The results may be useful for policymakers in Japan, such as the Japan Fair Trade Commission, in developing their awareness of this issue regarding the protection of R&D information. The issue of the need to control information and data during the standardization process is not adequately recognized by the parties participating in standardization activities or the SDO secretariat, which is the forum for standardization activities, because the knowledge created during standardization activities is currently considered neither a completely confidential technology nor an academic achievement. The prohibition of academic plagiarism protects academic authorship. This R&D information protection is the point that needs to be addressed in order to ensure competitiveness through standardization. This issue should be kept in mind, especially in relation to next-generation mobile communication standards and video transmission standards. Table 7. Entering into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with an SDO when participating in the activities of such an organization Note: From the results of SoSA in 2017 3. Conclusion While a statistically significant upward trend in the degree of standardization activity has been observed over the past five years, no statistically significant upward trend has been observed in the development of standardization departments . An intuitive understanding of the mechanism could be that within institutions, the implementation of standardization activities is rising in response to exogenous shocks, but the shocks have not caused companies to establish standardization management departments. If standardization activities are increasing in the company as a whole due to an external shock, but organizational development fails to progress, the company may suffer from inefficient operation due to a lack of clarity in terms of its responsibilities. The development of responsible departments will enable efficient and strategic management of research information, to which little attention has been paid in standardization activities. This perspective is strategically important in order to ensure that competitiveness is maintained while engaging in standardization activities. For institutions that intend to engage in standardization activities in the future, developing a management department is important for the strategic promotion of standardization. Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere appreciation to those who made time to provide responses to the survey despite their busy schedules. I would like to thank the Technical Regulations, Standards, and Conformity Assessment Unit at the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and the Japanese Standards Association (JSA). In addition, I extend special thanks to the ISO secretariat officials for their cooperation in including the results of previous surveys in the ISO Research Library. The study was supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (15K03718, 19K01827, and 23K01529; Principal Investigator: TAMURA, Suguru). Due to its academic importance, the JSPS granting policy is appended as follows. “The views and responsibilities regarding research results resulting from a grant shall exclusively belong to the researcher; the implementation and publication of said research results are not based on requests from the Japanese government body that provides the grant or others. Namely, the research funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research shall be conducted under the individual researcher’s authority with the researcher’s awareness and responsibility.” (Handbook on Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Program [Japan Society for the Promotion of Science] [in Japanese]) October 6, 2023 >> Original text in Japanese Footnote(s) This column is based on the following English article. The Japanese expressions in the tables are provisional translations of the originals. Tamura, S. (2023). Results of the Survey on Standardization Activities in 2021 (an overview of standardization activities and the administration system). RIETI Policy Discussion Paper Series 23-P-017. Retrieved from https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/pdp/23p017.pdf [accessed 2023]. A non-technical summary of the results and commentary in Japanese is also available. Retrieved from https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/nts/23p017.html [accessed 2023]. The most important research objective of standardization activity surveys is to continuously conduct nearly identical surveys. Five articles have been published as of 2023, including the referenced article for this column (Tamura, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022a, 2023). In addition, a series of surveys have been included in the research repositories of the ISO (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva) (International Organization for Standardization, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2022). Retrieved from https://library.iso.org/contents/data/status-of-standardization-activi.html [accessed 2023]. The Survey of Standardization Activities (SoSA) continues to be conducted on an annual basis. Because it is planned to continue in the future, in order to ensure comparability of academic data, accumulate statistical data, and improve academic and practical readability through unification of description, the format and expression of tables, figures, and related content (including titles and notes), description of survey items, survey scope, and style of result descriptions are described in the same manner (Tamura, 2022b). Not all respondents answered all the questions in this survey. Therefore, the number of respondents to each question varied, and there were differences in the number of respondents used to calculate the percentage of responses for each survey item (Tamura, 2023). Citation method for the content of this paper: Tamura, S. (2024). Management Issues Related to Standardization Activities in a Digital Society: Results of the Survey on Standardization Activities (2021), RIETI Column. The content of this article corresponds to the policy content of Chapter 2. 1. (6) "Promotion of research and development and social implementation to solve various social problems and utilization of the convergence of knowledge" of the Sixth Science, Technology and Innovation Basic Plan (FY2021-2025). RIETI is a research and development institution designated by Article 2 of the Act on Improving the Capacity, and the Efficient Promotion of Research and Development through Promotion of Research and Development System Reform (Act No. 63 of 2008) and related to the Basic Act on Science, Technology, and Innovation (Act No. 130 of 1995). This report describes the facts as of the end of September 2023. Contact: Reference(s) Hirata, T., Nagata, A., Toyama, R., Sasaki, T., and Hasegawa, K. (2001). Changing role of intellectual property division in Japanese firms. Proceedings of the Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology 01 (PICMET01), IEEE Xplore. International Organization for Standardization. (2021a). Results of a survey on standardization activities: Japanese institutions’ standardization activities in 2017 (implementation, knowledge source, organizational structure, and interest in artificial intelligence). Geneva: ISO Research library, ISO. Retrieved from https://library.iso.org/contents/data/results-of-a-survey-on-standardi.html [accessed 2023]. International Organization for Standardization. (2021b). Results of survey on standardization activities for 2018 (State of Implementation, Advanced Technologies, and Organizational Design). Geneva: ISO Research library, ISO. Retrieved from https://library.iso.org/contents/data/results-of-survey-on-standardiza.html [accessed 2023]. International Organization for Standardization. (2021c). Results of the Survey on Standardization Activity (2019): Situation of Standardization Activities in Business Entities and Other Institutions. Geneva: ISO Research library, ISO. Retrieved from https://library.iso.org/contents/data/results-of-the-survey-on-standar.html [accessed 2023]. International Organization for Standardization. (2022). Status of Standardization Activities (survey on standardization activities 2020) (overview of results by industry and R&D expenditures). Geneva: ISO Research library, ISO. Retrieved from https://library.iso.org/contents/data/status-of-standardization-activi.html [accessed 2023]. Tamura, S. (2012). Effects of Integrating Patents and Standards on Intellectual Property Management and Corporate Innovativeness in Japanese Electric Machine Corporations. International Journal of Technology Management, 59(3/4):180–202. Tamura, S. (2013). Generic definition of standardization and the correlation between innovation and standardization in corporate intellectual property activities. Science and Public Policy, 40 (2): 143–156. Tamura. S. (2019). Results of a survey on standardization activities: Japanese institutions’ standardization activities in 2017 (Implementation, knowledge source, organizational structure, and interest in artificial intelligence). RIETI PDP 19-P-013. Tamura. S. (2020). Results of Survey on Standardization Activities for 2018 (state of implementation, advanced technologies, and organizational design). RIETI PDP 20-P-023. Tamura, S. (2021). Results of the Survey on Standardization Activity (2019): Situation of Standardization Activities in Business Entities and Other Institutions. RIETI Policy Discussion Paper Series 21-P-015. Tamura, S. (2022a). Status of Standardization Activities (Survey on Standardization Activities 2020) (Overview of Results by Industry and R&D Expenditures). RIETI Policy Discussion Paper Series 22-P-015. Tamura, S. (2022b). Questionnaire form of the Survey on Standardization Activities. (unpublished) (in Japanese). Tamura, S. (2023). Results of the Survey on Standardization Activities in 2021 (an overview of standardization activities and the administration system). RIETI Policy Discussion Paper Series 23-P-017. Tweet March 26, 2024 Print Article(s) by this author Management Issues Related to Standardization Activities in a Digital Society: Results of the Survey on Standardization Activities (2021) March 26, 2024［Column］ Trends and Issues in Standardization Activities: Results of the Survey on Standardization Activities (2020) September 1, 2023［Column］ Are Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computers General Purpose Technology? Advanced Technologies Creating a New Era and Their Economic Significance (Results of the Survey on Standardization Activities 2020) August 25, 2023［Column］ Impact of Standardization on Management Strategy: A new perspective on administrative strategy theory May 12, 2022［Priorities for the Japanese Economy in 2022 (January 2022)］ Governance Issues Related to R&D Information Disclosure in Standards Development Bodies: An overview of the results of the survey on standardization activities (2019) May 12, 2022［Column］ Articles Column FY2024 FY2023 FY2022 FY2021 FY2020 FY2019 FY2018 FY2017 FY2016 FY2015 FY2014 FY2013 FY2012 FY2011 FY2010 FY2009 FY2008 FY2007 FY2006 FY2005 FY2004 FY2003 FY2002 FY2001 Special Series Newspapers & Magazines Fellows' Works VoxEU Column From IZA Perspectives from Around the World Other Contents RIETI Report Policy Update Keizai Sangyo Journal Communications Newsletter RSS Feed Facebook X YouTube Research Areas Research Programs (FY2024-2028) Research Programs (FY2020-2023) Research Programs (FY2016-2019) Research Programs (FY2011-2015) Policy Research Domains (FY2006-2010) Projects Survey Fellows Research/Policy Papers Discussion Papers (English) Discussion Papers (Japanese) Policy Discussion Papers (English) Policy Discussion Papers (Japanese) Technical Papers (English) Technical Papers (Japanese) Non Technical Summaries List of Articles in Journals Research Digest Discussion Papers Search Publications RIETI Books (English) RIETI Books (Japanese) History of Japan's Trade and Industry Policy Authors' Words Other Publications (English) Other Publications (Japanese) Events Symposiums Workshops BBL Seminars Archived Seminar Series Data JIP Database R-JIP Database CIP Database Industry-Specific Nominal and Real Effective Exchange Rates AMU and AMU Deviation Indicators JSTAR RIETI-TID RIETI FDI Database ICPA Project Links Articles Column Special Series Newspapers & Magazines Fellows' Works VoxEU Column From IZA Perspectives from Around the World Other Contents RIETI Report Policy Update Keizai Sangyo Journal (METI Journal) About RIETI Privacy Policy Site Policy Site Map Help Contact METI Web Site Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, IAA (JCN 6010005005426)JCN: Japan Corporate Number Opinions expressed or implied on this website are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).Titles, numbers, specific names, etc. on this website are as of the date of publication. 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