Utmost Gratification Of Consumption By Means Of Supra-Functionality Leads A Way To Overcoming Global Economic Stagnation | Chihiro Watanabe, Mitsuko Nasuno & Jae-Ho Shin

Japan has constructed a notable model for transforming external crisis into a springboard for new innovation. This can be attributed to technology substitution for constrained production factors inspired by induced bias in innovation. Because of the current global economic stagnation, Japan’s model has drawn global concerns. However, the limit of a substitution model in a production function has been revealed in an information society, leading to an increasing significance of the integration of production, diffusion and consumption functions. Consequently, the emergence of supra-functionality encompassing social, cultural, aspirational and emotional needs beyond economic value, leading to utmost gratification of consumption, has become critical. Since a group of consumers with a disability is more demanding of supra-functionality, an empirical reasearch based on an analysis of the demand of such a group and the institutional impediments that hinder the group’s ability to achieve utmost gratification was conducted. Japan’s mobile phone development trajectory was used for the analysis as its development trend corresponded to emerging from a disability of effective utilization of information technology (IT) in the paradigm shift to an information society and was typical of Japanese institutions in a constrained circumstance. Based on the optimal theory, optimal functionality development trajectory leading to utmost gratification of consumption was compared with that of the actual trajectory. The result demonstrated that while the optimal trajectory was lower than the actual level in its initial stage, it exceeded this level during the period when supra-functionality substituted for resistance to innovation by means of the emergence of mobile phone e-mail transmission. This emergence instilled in customers an exciting story with their own initiative as heroes/ heroines and thrilled them with gratification. This dynamism provides an insightful suggestion for overcoming the current global economic stagnation that has resulted in diminishing consumption.