Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) constitute a large proportion of the overall business population of industrially developed and developing nations. Despite the growing importance of SME research during the last decade, very little attention has been paid to the study of training and development practices in SMEs. This article sets out to redress this imbalance in current SME research. It outlines the preliminary results of a recent study that focused on determinants of training & development practices in manufacturing SMEs in Japan. The results of the analysis indicate that the attitude of owner/manager and organizational support towards training & development are the key determinants of training intensity in SMEs in Japan.

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Even though global markets are transferring from offline to online, offline sales are rapidly increasing in two top global furniture firms in Korea and Japan each—IKEA and Nitori. This study aims to answer the following research question: ‘What are the differences and similarities between IKEA and Nitori in the open innovation dynamics of furniture design and function?’ Diverse naturalistic qualitative research methods such as participatory observation, or focus group interviews were used. IKEA is mainly pursuing engineering open innovation strategies, including advanced furniture design with engineering knowledge, fusion with new IT and other technologies for new and innovative furniture function and design, and pursuit of creative design idea frontiers. Nitori is mainly pursuing a strategy towards customer open innovation, which is focused on domestic and regional requirements.