In this process of self-discovery, Japanese companies have encountered other issues affecting individuals in the work force, such as the conundrums facing working mothers. The number of women in the work force increased by 60.8 percent from 1980 to 2003, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. But many companies don't have maternity leave policies, so mothers who want to return to the workplace must reapply for their old jobs, said Haraoka of the Japan External Trade Organization.

Falling behind in population
The concept of day care is almost unknown in Japan, executives and workers say. Once women have children, they must live near home so that grandparents can take care of the kids, or they must simply quit working. Partly because of this, Japanese women are increasingly starting families later and having fewer children, a situation that will further exacerbate the country's low birth rate and aging population.

Japan's fertility rate in 2003 was 1.29 children per woman, government figures show. By 2050, the country's population could drop from 127 million today to 100 million. The global population is expected to rise from 6.1 billion to 9 billion in that time frame, according to the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations.

"The population is perhaps the biggest problem," Haraoka said. "It is declining."

For the high-tech industry, that means the country isn't producing enough scientists and engineers. Companies such as NEC have begun to increase the number of engineers they hire from Russia, South Korea and elsewhere to fill the void.

"Rather than taking the lead, Japan is losing ground to the United States in advanced technology and interdisciplinary fields, including IT and the life sciences," the Ministry of Education, Culture Sports, Science and Technology wrote in its annual report on technology. "In light of a future trend toward an aged society with fewer children...it is an urgent task (to) attract high-caliber personnel into the world of science and technology."

The decline of engineers and scientists entering the work force derives from a number of factors, many of which are familiar in the United States and Western Europe. Science and engineering, which remain scholastically demanding disciplines, tend to be unattractive as majors. Business graduates, particularly those who go on to earn master's degrees, can often get higher salaries in other fields.

Lack of discipline blamed
Yet executives here say some of the issues in Japan are unique to the country's academic system. Two decades ago, they say, students relentlessly plowed through calculations and exercises in a curriculum heavy in repetition and memory that began at young ages. The educational establishment then shifted the emphasis to creativity, the arts and problem solving--a move that critics say dampened interest in hard sciences.

"We're losing the ability and interest of small children," said Fumio Ueno, an executive in Toshiba's Display Devices & Components Control Center whose own technological prowess is evident in his work to develop a small fuel cell for MP3 players and handheld devices. During the dot-com bubble, he added, "people learned they can make a lot of money in the stock market."

Others say Japan must strengthen the ties between its universities and private enterprises, developing relationships similar to the kind of U.S. pipelines that have led to the creation of companies ranging from Sun Microsystems to Google.

"Some companies sponsor university research, but it is not as embedded in the structure as it is in the U.S., Europe or Taiwan," said Douglas Sparks, a consultant at DSK Associates. For example, he said, Taiwan's National University has nearly doubled its faculty in the past three years and erected several new buildings that bear the names of local technology giants.

Japanese companies are also aware that they must pay more attention to those engineers already on their payroll. Fujitsu is planning a program to provide a richer in-house professional career path for engineers, allowing them to get pay raises and promotions without moving to management positions that do not make the best use of their technical talents.

Here again, Western business philosophy comes into play, in a form that is distinctly Silicon Valley: invention of the next big thing.

"In the U.S., there are many stories of the engineer realizing the American dream," Yamanaka said. "In Japan, there aren't as many."