Pulp Consumption

There are many things I stop using after coming to US. One of them is business cards. In Japan, when we introduce ourselves at the first meeting, we always exchange business cards. So I must have carried my cards at any time. Even now I have some pieces in my bag, but there has been no opportunity to use them so far. I ordered two hundred pieces of my cards just before coming to US. But I don’t believe that I can consume them during my stay.

Another thing I don’t use in US is a handkerchief. Handkerchiefs seem to have given way to paper towels and napkins. To my surprise, every public restroom is equipped with paper towel. So, my handkerchief has been always kept in my pocket. Only chance to use it is perhaps when I cry. But I haven’t cry until now, unfortunately.

Why doesn't American use handkerchief? Wikipedia answers my question as follows. "Use of handkerchief instead of facial tissue paper is often seen as old-fashioned and, especially in North America, unhygienic". Oh, I see. That's why American doesn't. The following sentences are more interesting, "On the other hand, some see it as a more environment-conscious choice. In Japan and Sri Lanka, those carrying a handkerchief are considered to be well-educated." I didn't know that handkerchief was the proof of education.

Anyway, paper towels and napkins are omnipresent in US. You can use as much papers as you can anywhere at any time. In restroom, many men draw out too long roll of paper. In fast food restaurant, most customers take too many pieces of napkins. At first, I thought American waste more resources than Japanese do. Many Japanese thinks that US is more wasteful and Japan is more environmentally friendly. This impression may be rather correct. But as for pulp consumption, the difference between two countries seems not so large.

Omnipresent in Japan are tissue papers. In streets and stations, we often receive tissue packets with the flyer on the front. In huge terminal stations such as Shinjuku, getting five or six packets is not so difficult. We welcome and carry them in our bag because some of public toilets in Japan don’t have toilet paper as well as paper towel. Also, in spring, many Japanese who suffer hay fever (about fifteen percent of Japanese including me) always have to blow their nose. To use tissue, we have no option but to see the advertisement. From the advertisers’ standpoint, this high exposure is very attractive. If those packets are just flyer, we will not receive them. Even if we do, we will discard them immediately and seldom read them. That is why tissue packets are very strong promotion tool for marketers and convenient tool for people in Japan. Apparently this tool cannot be adopted by US advertisers. There is no reason to carry tissue packet for US people.

Sample of Tissue Packet Flyer on Sales Promotion Company's Website

12,500 yen (approximately 100$) per 1,000 pieces

Tissue Packet Flyer in Akihabara

Both US and Japan consumes huge quantity of pulp, but the style is different. US pulp consumption is more conspicuous than Japanese one. We can easily find paper towel and napkins anywhere in US. In the same way, we can easily find tissue papers in their pockets and bags in Japan (if inspection is allowed).

According to this website (written in Japanese), the quantity of paper consumption per capita/year in Japan is increasing from 239kg in 1995 to 246kg in 2005. On the contrary, US consumption is reducing from 332kg to 301kg. Of course, this contrast cannot be explained by the consumption of paper towel or tissue. It may be due to the influence of rapid growth of Information Technology. I found that US universities are good at utilize IT such as Blackboard to reduce paper consumption. But Japanese universities and companies seems to use more papers than before “IT Revolution”. The more the printers become faster, the more documents we print out, as I did. It is possible that Japanese paper consumption exceeds US one in future.

Healing Boom in Japan

Below is the summary of "The Social Construction of Consumer Needs: A Content Analysis of the Healing Boom in Japan". This research was published in two Japanese academic journals in 2004. I am now revising the original version and translating it into English. If you are interested, please give me your advice to improve my research.

This paper analyzes the developing process of the healing boom in Japan at the end of 1990s. This boom is very different from other booms in two ways. First, many firms belonging to different industries have launched a large number of healing products/services since mid-1990s. Second, as a consequence of this massive market entry, the meaning of healing accepted by consumers changed drastically.

According to Kohjien, the most famous Japanese dictionary, the verb Iyasu (heal) means to cure somebody’s disease or injury; satisfy hunger, or remove emotional pain. But the explanation of Iyashi Sijoh (the market of healing) in Gendai yogo no Kiso Chisiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words) 2003 Edition, published by Jiyukokumin-sha, is fundamentally different from the traditional explanation. The encyclopedia explains that Iyashi Sijoh is the market of goods and services useful to create psychological security, and nowadays various kinds of consumer goods such as books, music, paintings, movies, massage, drink, food, and clothing to make us feel relaxed fall under this rubric. This change of definitions seems to show that the word healing has moved from spiritual dimension to material dimension, and the practice of satisfying one’s need for healing by consuming goods and services sold in market has been firmly established. It is reasonable to suppose that needs for healing are socially constructed.

This paper focuses on the process of the social construction of healing needs and explains the process as a consequence of firms’ continuous mimetic behavior caused by “theorization” about the boom (Strang and Mayer 1993). In consumer goods/service industries, a boom is not unusual in one industry. But the phenomenon of firms in various industries participating in one boom, such as the healing boom is very unique. Nikkei Marketing Journal explained that the healing boom was triggered by the consumers who suffered serious stress caused by bothersome human relations and economic pressures in the long depression of the Lost Decade (the 1990s) and needed to be healed, and many firms supplied various goods/services to respond to this perceived need. Although this explanation is dominant in marketing discourse, we think that consumers’ needs are one of the reasons for the rapid emergence of numerous healing products/services but not the only one, and the firms’ continuous mimetic behavior and the discourse featuring the boom are more important reason.

To verify this assumption, we investigated both the collective behavior of firms and the discourse prevailed in mass media. On the one hand, we investigated all the healing products/services launched from 1988 to 2001. Using NIKKEI TELECON 21, the database of leading Japanese economic newspapers such as Nihonkeizaishinbun and Nikkei Marketing Journal, we collected 1,162 newspaper articles containing the keyword Iyashi (healing in Japanese) and Hiiring (healing as a loan word).

On the other hand, we investigated two kinds of discourse about healing boom. To understand how this boom was explained by marketing experts, we analyzed the contents of 1,162 newspaper articles qualitatively. In addition, to find the difference among discourses revealed to various market segments (e.g. men vs. women), we conducted a content analysis of 1,984 article titles containing both Iyashi and Hiiring from 441 types of magazines issued from 1985 to 2001. These titles are collected from the Oya Soichi Bunko Magazine Article Index CD-ROM database, which covers popular magazines such as hobbies, entertainment, and true-life stories.

From these data sets, I found that 542 healing products/services were launched during this period and the number of healing products/services launched increased rapidly in 1999 and 2000. Besides the rapid increase in products/services launched in 1999, massive publicity campaigns by prestigious mass media companies started. In this year, calm piano music Energy Flow composed and performed by world the famous musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and used as the background music in a TV commercial for a vitamin drink became a hit song. At the same time, the dog robot AIBO manufactured by Sony became popular. Although Mr. Sakamoto and Sony did not intend to appeal to the healing function of their products, mass media such as Nikkei Marketing Journal diffused this interpretation and they were both welcomed by consumers a fitting their needs for healing. Nikkei Marketing Journal gave AIBO their Hittoshohin Banzuke (Annual Award for Hit Products) at the end of this year. Furthermore, Jiyukokumin-sha awarded the word Iyashi as the new word representing the atmosphere of the year in Ryukogo Taisho (Annual Award for New/Trendy Word). After this massive publicity campaign, many firms rushed into healing market. These developments show that the rapid development of the healing market cannot be explained only by the consumers’ needs. The massive publicity campaign by the mass media and the firms’ trying to grasp the new financial opportunity contributed significantly to the rapid growth of the healing boom.

This boom can be understood by applying the framework of institutional theory (Powell and DiMaggio 1991), which is useful for analyzing the socio-historic patterning of consumption, an important research program in Consumer Culture Theory (Arnold and Thompson 2005). We think the Japanese firms’ mimetic behavior is both the cause and consequence of cognitive institutionalization of healing. Cognitive institution means shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and frames through which meaning is made (Scott 2001). The shared conceptions of the healing boom is the belief that consumers are fatigued due to stressful urban life and seriously hope to be relaxed, resulting in many business opportunities in the healing market. This cognitive institution triggered by massive media campaign was established around 1999, and since then both the consumers and firms shared conceptions of their life worlds and soon took it for granted (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Establishment of the shared conceptions has been enhanced by firms’ mimetic behaviors and mass media’s agenda setting. Consumers’ needs for healing were not created by the socio-economic environment, but were socially constructed through the interaction among firms, mass media, and consumers.

In marketing discourse, the explanation that consumer needs create market phenomena is dominant, supposedly because of the strong influence of the “marketing concept” which emphasizes customer orientation and consumer sovereignty. But the healing boom is instead explained by firms’ mimetic behaviors and the mass media’s publicity campaign. Although consumers are not the cultural dupes of an affluent society (Galbraith 1958), they are not sovereign, and their preferences are not private, free and rational (Slater 1997). This case of Japanese healing boom gives us an opportunity to reconsider the dynamics of market phenomena and consumer needs.

Energy Flow - Ryuichi Sakamoto (1999)

Strang and Meyer (1993)

Below is a summary of and my comment about David Strang and John W. Meyer (1993), "Institutional Conditions for Diffusion, " Theory and Society, 22 (4), 487-511. JSTOR

Summary

This theoretical paper tries to suggest how institutional conditions affect the rate and form of diffusion. Contrary to dominant diffusion research focusing on connectedness among adopters, they emphasize the influence of theorized accounts of practices (innovation) and those adopters.

This paper points out the feature and weakness of prevailing theory of diffusion, which is generally reviewed by Everett Rogers. It can be summarized in three. First, they suppose “sociological realism,” paying attention to mapping direct contacts between prior and potential adopters. Actors are considered as purposive and rational, and they and their network relations are understood as jointly providing a sufficient basis for the explanation of social behavior. Second, their model is relational. The of rates of diffusion should vary with levels of interaction between prior and potential adaptors. Many analyses treat diffusion as a spatial process, where probability of transmission is some function of geographical distance. Third, rationalities are emphasized. Practices are adopted to the extent that they appear more effective or efficient than the alternative.

The authors insist that rapid and unstructured diffusion observed in modern world system such as educational practices among American states cannot be predicted with the prevailing theory. and that we need adopt new theoretical framework. As an alternative model, the authors present the concept of “theorization.” Theorization means “the self-conscious development and specification of abstract categories and the formulation of patterned relationship such as chains of cause and effect” (p. 492). Diffusion is accelerated and redirected by their theorization. Among the examples they show, most striking is the one that Marxist theorization of world-history hasten the diffusion of socialist revolution.

Theorization prompts diffusion in three ways. First, by proposing homogeneities within populations of adopters, theorization motivate them to acquire practices. They predict that similar practices can be adopted by all members of a theoretically defined population, with similar effects. Second, by abstracting properties of practices and specifying the outcomes they produce, theorization make it easier to perceive and communicate about the practice to potential adopters. Also, theorization documents the many virtues involved in practices, in terms of standardized notions of efficacy or justice or progress. These two theorization are jointed in many cases. As an example, the authors indicate that Simonean information processing theory and organizational practice/structure are interpenetrated. Third, theorists themselves become central conduits of diffusion, as Harvard economists was active in bringing Keynesian fiscal policy to Washington.

When theorization shapes diffusion, what flows is not a copy of some practice existing elsewhere, but the theoretical model of the diffusing practice. Theorization facilitates communication between strangers by providing a language that does not presume direct shared experience. Theorized diffusion is also likely to be relatively unconstrained by relational structure. Theorization permits the actor to see through the confusing evidence of others’ mixed successes and detect the “true” factors at work. In short, theorization may be regarded as turning diffusion into rational choice.

The authors consider diffusion as modern phenomenon. Many previous diffusion research have studied marginally modern peoples exposed to modern practices. But in the contemporary world, both practices and adopters are likely to be modern.

Comment

I think this paper has two strength. One is that they introduced discourse ("theorization" in this paper) about the diffusing innovation ("practices" in this paper) into the analytical framework of diffusion research. This make it possible to analyze what Giddens called dualities of structure. In modern society, everybody is a theorist. We, from individual to organization to nation state, try to understand and explain rationally what we see, hear, and experience. Professionals and/or mass media provide tools for constructing our explanations. This tool is exactly "theorization" Strang and Meyer explained. For example, to understand the dynamic process of fads in fashion industry, we must consider not only the diffusion process of fashion item but also the discourse about it. Because there is not clear criteria such as efficiency and effectiveness to evaluate products in fashion, the influence of discourse prevailed in mass media (e.g. magazines) cannot be ignored to analyze the diffusion process.

Another strength of this paper is that they pointed out the features of dominant diffusion research clearly. In total, they raised four points. First three can be called as 3Rs (realism, rationality, and rationality). Although these points are sharp enough, the forth, the assumption about the laggardness of potential adopters, is more important. In modern world, adopters are not so ignorant as those in premodern world who adopted boiled drinking water introduced by advanced countries. By finding this tacit assumption, I realized for the first time why the framework summarized by Rogers explain the phenomenon of fads and fashion observed in Japan (or US) partially and insufficiently.

Contrary to the sharp theoretical analysis, the discussion about the methodology to grasp theorization is not enough, I think. How can theorization be operationalized? To understand the interpenetration process of discourse and behavior explained by them, we must compare the data sets of the two. Making the data of the behavior is relatively easy, but analyzing discourse, mostly text data, is very completed and time consuming. Discourse should be analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. To use quantitative analysis, the technique of content analysis and text mining should be elaborated. In this point, Eric Abrahamson's analysis of management fashion is very useful.