It is a truism that large, established companies must continually evolve by engaging in various forms of innovation. Particularly in light of the advent of the knowledge society, businesses are faced with a large transition from focusing solely on developing products and services, to also strategically innovating to improve their business processes.
In particular, for various large, leading-edge businesses whose core competencies are in the software, semiconductor, and networking technology that form the foundation of multimedia and computer networks, as well as for numerous venture companies, the past several years have brought increasingly in- tense competition to leverage such new business styles as strategic partnerships, mer- gers and acquisitions, outsourcing, and virtual corporations, for the purposes of developing strategic enterprises, expanding the market shares of their products and services, and creating new businesses.