Yoko Ishikura

Professor
International Business Strategy

Education

Professor Ishikura received her BA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; MBA from Darden School, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Viriginia; and DBA from Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Positions held

Professor Ishikura was a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Business of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo from 1992 to 2000, teaching Strategy and Global Marketing courses. Previously, she was a consultant at McKinsey and Company Inc. Japan from 1985 to 1992. She was a visiting professor at Darden School from 1995 to 2001 and served as a member of the Board of Directors, Avon Products, Co. Ltd. from 1996 to 2000, was on the advisory board of Mazda Corporation from 2003 to 2006, and a non-executive Director of Japan Post from 2004 to 2007.

Dr. Ishikura is a non-executive Director of Mitsui OSK Lines.

Professor Ishikura is a consultant to a number of multinational companies and has been a frequent speaker at management conferences, seminars, and workshops throughout the world.

She was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee for the Japanese government (1998 to 2001), the International Competitiveness Commission for METI (2001). She was also a member of the Cluster Commission for METI (2002 to 2005), an executive member of the Council for Science and Technology Policy (2008-2009) and was Vice President of Science Council of Japan (2005-2006). She is currently a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a associate member of Science Council of Japan.

Selected papers and publications

Professor Ishikura is the author of Strategic Shift from OR　choices to the AND paradigm(Toyo Keizai, 2009, in Japanese), Building Core Skills of Organization (NTT Publishing, 1992, in Japanese), the translator of Strategic Management (G.Saloner, et al. by John Wiley, Japanese version by Toyo Keizai) and the co-author of the following books: (1) Managing Diversity in the 21st Century (with Hirotaka Takeuchi, 1994, Diamond Publishing, in Japanese) and (2) Strategy for Cluster Initiatives in Japan (2003, Yuhikaku Publishing, in Japanese). 
(3) Building a career to the World Class Professionals (with Kiyoshi Kurokawa, 2006, Toyo Keizai, in Japanese).

Books in English include the following:


Asian Advantage, 1998, Addison Wesley Longman,
by George S. Yip, with Wayne Cartwright, Peter T．Fitzroy, Susan Freeman, Youngwook Jun, Siti Maimon Kamso, Mari Kondo, Joseph Putti, Kam-hon Lee, Kavil Ramachandran, Kulwant Singh, Emanuel V. Soriano, Kanoknart Visudtibhan, Albert Widjaja, and Ching-sung Wu： Chapter 3, pp. 34−61



Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management, 2003, by Hirotaka Takeuchi & Ikujiro Nonaka: Chapter 7: Knowledge Management and Global Competition, pp. 183-225



Trust and Antitrust in Asian Business Alliances, 2003, edited by John B. Kidd & Frank Jurgen Richter: Chapter 13: Clusters as 'ba' for Knowledge Management, pp. 290-313



In addition, she has written several case studies for the Harvard Business School, Darden School, and Babson College, as well as numerous articles for the Diamond Harvard Business, Hitotsubashi Business Review, Journal of Health and Society, and other journals and business magazines including the following:



Note on the World Copier Industry, 1983,
Harvard Business School, Case Study, with Michael E. Porter



Canon Inc.: World Copier Strategy, 1983, Harvard Business School, Case Study, with Michael E. Porter



Household Goods and Personal Care Products Industry in Asia,
1998, Darden School Foundation, Case Study



Merck ＆ Co., Inc.: Corporate Governance at a Pharmaceutical Company, 2002, Babson College, with　J. P. Jeannet and David. Q. Anderson



Astrazeneca PLC: Corporate Governance at a Pharmaceutical Company, 2002, Babson College, with J. P. Jeannet and David. Q. Anderson

Her "Act globally, think locally" was selected as one of the Breakthrough Ideas 2007 for the Harvard Business Review.

Current research and activities

Professor Ishikura’s current research interests are focused on global competition, innovation, and knowledge management.

Courses