The Paradox Of A Service-Oriented Economy For Sustainability: Co-Evolution Between Innovation And Resources Effectuation By A Global Complement | Hiroyasu Horio & Chihiro Watanabe

A service-oriented economy is expected to play a significant role in relieving the constraints on an economy by means of information substitution for constrained production factors such as energy. However, contrary to such an expectation, the dramatic increase in crude oil prices that emerged in the beginning of the 2000s has revealed the paradox of a service-oriented economy. Japan has been recognized for its notable energy efficiency improvement by means of technology substitution for energy that induced vigorous industry R&D leading to a high-technology miracle in an industrial society. However, its efforts to shift to a service-oriented economy corresponding to a paradigm shift to an information society have produced opposite results by increasing industry?s unit energy consumption and decreasing price elasticity to energy consumption. The above phenomenon reveals a paradox with respect to a service-oriented economy for sustainability. Furthermore, while the advancement of information technology is expected to lead to a globalized economy, it also shows the result of increasing constraints by means of less effectuation of energy use. These paradoxes provide a warning with respect to the significant role of a service-oriented economy in constructing co-evolution between innovation and resources effectuation by a global complement. On the basis of an empirical analysis of the energy dependency structure of Japan and other East Asian countries in the context of advancement of a service- oriented economy, this paper attempts to demonstrate the foregoing hypothetical views.