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JAPANESE & AMER. CONSUMERS.
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Compares impact of economics & culture, psychological aspects, marketing, pricing, saving vs. spending.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Compares impact of economics & culture, psychological aspects, marketing, pricing, saving vs. spending.
Paper Introduction:
The purpose of this research is to examine issues surrounding Japanese and American consumers from the standpoint of human behavior and cultural differences. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms the background and context for considering differences in consumer behavior in the U.S. and Japan, and then to discuss how differences between the two cultures in general and consuming subcultures in particular influence buying and saving habits.
In order to understand consumer behavior, it is essential to appreciate that consumerism is at least in part a response to market behavior in general and the psychology of marketing in particular. Modern theories of marketing are grounded in appreciation of their connection to social, cultural, and political history and indeed in connection with evaluations of satis
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The plan of the research will be to set forth in general termsthe background and context for considering differences in consumer behaviorin the U.S. This idea has been adumbrated by morerecent research. is over israther subtle when set beside Wacker's assertion that consumer psychologyis shaped by having access to goods. Additionally,however, it means that a single definition of a consumer is problematic.This explains such concepts as market segmentation, or the "groupingidentifiable consumers who possess similar needs and desires" (Taylor andShaw 58), but the fact is that markets may be segmented across innumerableindependent variables. Ed. 1997): I35.Williams, Daniel. This history is in the background of the assertion by Sood andNasu (esp. The ongoing downward spiral of the Japanese economic environment as of1997-1998 may be exerting influence on consumer attitudes if not behavior.Meanwhile, however, the trade journal Advertising Age (Wentz I35) suggeststhat Japanese consumer preferences (irrespective of income potential) tendtoward high-tech products and services typical of affluent European andAmerican consumers--even toward overwhelming demand for highly specializedbeauty products. In order to understand consumer behavior, it is essential toappreciate that consumerism is at least in part a response to marketbehavior in general and the psychology of marketing in particular. $12,5 ). (157-6 ), of the social psychology of consumer behavior and the experience ofthe relationship of the consumer to money and the marketplace. "Contemporary Literature and the Embedded Consumer Culture: The Case of Updike's Rabbit." Empirical Approaches to Literature and Aesthetics. The Making of Modern Japan. Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing Company, 1969.Wacker, Watts. Indeed, marketsfunction optimally the more they can facilitate distribution paths fromproducer to consumer. Japan's strongly authoritarian and hierarchical history informscontemporary positive, universal commitment to reverence toward politicalor social power and organization around cultural symbols (Pyle 193, etpassim). "Consumers in Japan Look for Quality, Price." Journal of Commerce and Commercial, 24 Oct. . Consumer choices may reflectgroup priorities or group interaction vis-à-vis information about aproduct. Ed. Meanwhile, however,marketing theory is attuned to innovation. Big Marketing Ideas for Small Service Businsses. "The Social Psychology of Economic and Consumer Behaviour." Applied Social Psychology. Drawing on a variety of resourcesthat have tracked American market behavior in the postwar era, Taylor andShaw allude to the trade, production, and sociocultural implications of themarketing process in their definition of marketing as "the process of asociety by which the demand structure or the desire for economic goods andservices is anticipated or enlarged and satisfied through the conception,promotion, exchange, and physical distribution of such goods and services"(Taylor and Shaw 7). Segmentation, or niche marketing, is a strategyof maneuvering around strength to target highly specific consumer tastes(Ross and Ross 11). Mary Sue MacNealy and Roger J. Among the most critical is that "patterns ofconsumption" (Taylor and Shaw 58) shift in response to both socioeconomicforces (including demographic shifts) and production capacities. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1989. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1996. and Japan, and then to discuss how differences between the twocultures in general and consuming subcultures in particular influencebuying and saving habits. Sherry Jr. In the American free-market system, there is a presumption of theconsumer's free agency. It would be difficult to find in the community of 2 th-centuryrepresentative democracies a sharper contrast between postwar America andpostwar Japan. It is noteworthy that this definition encompasses notonly the production of a good or service and its promotion to consumers,but also the channels of distribution that facilitate the ultimateconsumption of the goods or services being marketed. What wasnew in this consumer group was a general precariousness of future earningprospects and consciousness of increased medical expenses. One aspect of this is theshift from patterns of home-based production of goods to consumer-brandgoods from toilet paper to foods distinguished by special packaging andbrand names. Americanculture, he says (32-3), is defined by the psyche of consumption, eventhough the consuming public is no longer unitary but rather highlysegmented according to idiosyncratic social experience. In theory, consumer satisfaction is held to be "thevery heart of the marketing universe" (Taylor and Shaw 87). Ross and Ross discuss marketpositioning and segmentation in this regard: "Positioning is simply lookingfor the hole--then plugging it. "Japan: The Ultimate Buyer's Market." Advertising Age 68 (13 Jan. The inference to bedrawn from his view that the notion of mass culture in the U.S. But the truth is that in the most recent period there is not a greatdeal of consistency in assessments of Japanese consumer behavior. Now Barrow makes his case writing in 1994, and evidence ofJapanese price consciousness (for example) is articulated as of 1997. 2d ed. 1997): 17.Sood, James, and Nasu, Yukio. 5-8) in an examination of the psychological and religiousaspects of consumer behavior that religiosity was relatively insignificantfor consumer behavior but that so-called national characteristics stronglyinfluenced it. Instead of fighting for market share, youcreate a new market" (1 ). This is in the background ofthe view that marketing is "a strategic ingredient" of the "entireindustrial process" (Taylor and Shaw 4). Ittherefore remains to be seen whether bargain hunting per se will survive areassertion or other reconfiguration of the Japanese economy along linesmore familiar and congenial to Japan's industrial and cultural elitism. For example, MacDougall shows that what began as theOccupation's determination to decentralize Japan's WWII ultranationalism byimproving the status and power of localized governance evolved de factointo something rather different. This suggests that that subculturalelites, which have discretionary income that can purchase access,participate in the culture fundamentally and not instrumentally by way ofbehavior as consumers. "Democracy and Local Government in Postwar Japan." Democracy in Japan. What had been animperialist economy was transformed into a capitalist system. Japan: Beyond the End of History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.Kubota, Coco. "Brand Loyalty and Consumption Patterns: The Lineage Factor." Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior: An Anthropological Sourcebook. . to a 2 th-century tendency toward materialistvalues in America and to a nexus of brand names and consumer attitudes, theone in part defining the characteristics of the other. 1995): 1-9.Taylor, Weldon J., and Shaw, Roy T., Jr. The same is true of Japanese consumer behavior, even though--orespecially because--of the unitary character of its modern and historicalculture and tradition. According to Taylor and Shaw, consumer leadership is predicated of"rational analysis of the costs and the anticipated satisfactions ratherthan on an obsession for something new" (118). But if thatholds true across cultures, then the variety of social and culturalexperience and perception complicates that universe to the degree consumerbehavior flows from multiple social and economic class, educational levels,economic expectations, and "classes within classes" (Taylor and Shaw 98).Social history, geography, and group and individual interaction are allfactors of market knowledge and analysis. "Changing Demands." Journal of Advertising Research 36 (Jan.- Feb. and Japanese consumerbehavior. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. Modern Japan: The American Nexus. Onthe other hand, Japanese traditional culture seems to have greatresiliency. This means, for one thing, that marketers andproducers are challenged to find equilibrium between cost of production anddistribution and customer satisfaction. in the twentieth century was considered to bethe widespread increase discretionary income in the U.S. As a practical matter, whatthis comes down to is that the world's most successful democracy abettedthe reemergence of a historically elitist society in the guise (or, fautede mieux, fact) of an industrial democracy. Olsen characterizes the transformation of American societyfrom a producer to a consumer culture (245). Indeed,Barrow contends, to protect the profitability and integrity of Japan'sindustrial elite more generally: Japan's retail prices are 7 percent higher than in the United States. In particular, they were struck by the Japanese preferencefor Japanese-produced goods as against the American (Protestant) preferencefor or at least consciousness of pricing. Aggressive promotion, says Olsen, had the effect ofsocializing or acculturating customers to become consumers (252ff). Heath, 1978.Ross, Marilyn and Tom. Marketing: An Integrated, Analytical Approach. Moderntheories of marketing are grounded in appreciation of their connection tosocial, cultural, and political history and indeed in connection withevaluations of satisfactory social experience. Greider notes that it was in thisperiod that the mass market per se split apart, but significantly, consumerdemand was formulated as "total money available to the people who couldafford to buy things" (Greider 656). Williams (117-24) cites the tradition of the difference betweenmanifest and latent power as decisive in the redeployment of political,social, and economic power in postwar Japan. Since the 198 s, theeconomic picture as a whole has shifted such that, despite an increase inthe gap of earnings between haves and have-nots and the persistence ofmassive consumer debt, the number of haves (i.e., potential consumers) hasincreased while massive threats of inflation and recession have receded inthe face of perceptions of economic stability. It is this equilibrium that"triggers a market transaction" (Taylor and Shaw 32). after the GreatDepression (Taylor and Shaw 76-81). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, Inc., 1995. For decades, the most striking social transformation relevant toconsumer behavior in the U.S. John F. they were too busy buying things, buying themsooner rather than later" (16). 2d ed. TheJapanese response to an increasing economic precariousness points updramatic cultural differences informing U.S. "Japanese Losing Penchant for Gadgets." Nikkei Weekly 35 (3 Nov. Whether discretionary income per se as an index of mass culture or themore recent cultural segmentation of America is taken as defined byconsumer behavior (more exactly the act of consumption), it seems apparentthat how consumers dispose of funds is a function of "psychological andsociological factors that affect consumption or spending" (Taylor and Shaw84). Wacker'sview is consistent, too, with the facts of consumer behavior in the late197 s and throughout the 198 s, in the wake of President Jimmy Carter'ssolemn injunction that "piling up material goods cannot fill the emptinessof lives" (Greider 14). Kreuz. 245-281.Pyle, K.B. A 1997 survey, reportedly conducted via Internet access (Sakuraba17) of some 1, male (= household heads and decision makers) consumersfound a marked lack of interest in novelty and accumulation of materialpossessions, particularly among purchasers under 4 years of age. But in contrastwith the willingness of Americans to go into debt to consume material goodsas an index of cultural participation, the evidence of Japanese consumerbehavior (or at least stated preferences in the survey) was thatcomparatively less importance was attached to the fact of consumption. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 199 .Sakuraba, Kaoru. 1996): 31-34.Wentz, Laurel. Thisis consistent with a small notice of increasing price consciousness inJapan owing to credit crunches and declining purchasing power ("Bargain"1 3) as well as the increased emphasis on saving for old age (Sakuraba 17). Bettina, and Keillor, Bruce. American consumer spendingcontinues. Semin. London: Sage, 1996. But precisely because the Japanese relied onoutsiders for postwar defense, they could concentrate energies on economicissues. New York: Routledge, 1994. Wacker observes the emergence of a version of moral equivalencebetween consumer behavior and consumer psychology in the U.S. 1996: 5A.MacDougall, Terry E. Indeed, as Greider explains, "most Americans couldnot pause for long to contemplate the President's warning about theemptiness of materialism. . Financial insecurity as a consequence ofinflation in the early 198 s and of recession in the mid-198 s and beyondappears to have fostered persistent consumption, although when the Reaganboom went bust the consumption was captured by a willingness of the lessaffluent to go into debt to maintain an association with material goods:"Consumption remained strong because more and more families relied on debtrather than earnings" (Greider 7 6). Over thefollowing decades, the transformation was dominated by Japan's shift from adefeated military empire into a superior force in international economics.As Boyle notes, the view of Japan as a vital ally against Asian communism"was not always matched by a particular appreciation of the future economicsignificance of Japan" (352). "Poor People in a Rich Land." Challenge 37 (March 1994): 56-58.Boyle, J.H. Krauss. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.Cornwell, T. In other words, access to goods (touse Wacker's term) became coeval with materialism and money as a positivesocial value, even among American consumers who as a practical matter mighthave done worse than not making specific purchases. Ed. Klaus Fiedler and Guen R. The evidence of consumer behavior in recent years isthat maneuver--hence access to consumer taste--is more likely to besuccessful, or at least more predictable, among American than Japaneseconsumer groups, owing to the frankness of materialist American ethos andthe ambiguities attached to Japanese response to consuming opportunities onone hand and industrial-distribution praxis on the other. The average Japanese citizen spends more on consumption than the average American does (about $13,5 vs. Wacker's assessment is consistent with Dittmar'sdiscussion, focused mainly on Britain but tangentially on the U.S. Ed. 139-17 .Olsen, Barbara. 559-572.Dittmar, Helga. After World War II, Japan was vanquished. Meanwhile, according to Barrow (57), the gap between richand poor has dramatically increased in Japan since the 198 s, not leastbecause of the well-embedded tradition, largely unchallenged by mass-marketbehavior in Japan, of governmental/institutional/cultural economicprotectionism for the highest Japanese elite: rice agriculture. Ironically, the Allied occupation appears to have facilitated arenewal of Japanese insularity and bureaucratization of its marketplace,owing in no small part to Japanese traditions of cultural stability andhierarchy. The purpose of this research is to examine issues surrounding Japaneseand American consumers from the standpoint of human behavior and culturaldifferences. Japanese corporations have been known to boost the domestic prices of their products to offset lower prices abroad and to thus retain their competitive share in foreign markets (Barrow 57).To put it another way, free-market consumerism in Japan is captured (andperhaps held prisoner) by Japanese culture and hierarchical/authoritantradition. Takeshi Ishida and Ellis S. This means that, as Taylor and Shaw point out, "knowledge of groupinfluences offer a means of creating a more effective [marketing] plan"(1 7). Lexington, Mass.: D.C. "Religiosity and Nationality: An Exploratory Study of Their Effect on Consumer Behavior in Japan and the United States." Journal of Business Research 34, (Sept. Brandpreferences in America, indeed, are so strongly embedded into the culturethat they can be seen across generations and across class-status lines.Using Updike's Rabbit novels as a benchmark (the novels chart the life andwork of an upscale American) Cornwell and Keillor connect overt brandconsciousness in the U.S. 145-72.Greider, William. It is difficult to reconcile this ethos with reports ofJapanese practicality, penchant for saving, and price consciousness by 1997(Sakuraba 17). Local governments functioned as buffersbetween national-bureaucratic caprice and facilitated participatorydemocracy, but their principal role in modern Japan was that of efficientadministrator of individual welfare on an egalitarian basis, in the contextof social or economic inequities built into Japanese political economy. Works Cited"Bargain Hunting Booms in Japan." International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 25 (February-March 1997): 1 3-4.Barrow, Geoffrey A.
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