Status quo bias is a tendency to want to maintain the status quo unless something goes wrong. To put it a little more difficult, it tends to overreact to “loss (risk)” that can be lost by it rather than the “gain” that can be obtained by changing.
I myself thought that the current status quo is biased as a characteristic mental structure of the Japanese people. In Japan, even if politicians on the political side have scandals, even if they do not achieve the economic indicators pledged at the time of the election, there will be no change of government. In addition, I often experience being in the ICT industry, but even if we propose new technologies at the opportunity to update existing systems, it is often judged that it may be an extension of the current system. Even if you explain the advantages of a system that adopts a new technology in numbers, it is due to the track record of using the existing system stably and the familiarity of the user. In the human resources market, the tendency to change jobs generally feels low even when talented professionals and managers are unfortunately not getting a place to play an active role. Of course, there are cases where self-evaluation is not high, and there are cases where you can not become active in changing jobs because treatment including salary is simply good. However, compared to other countries, I feel that we have not been able to create an aggressive and cross-cutting human resources market, except for some industries that are foreign-affiliated.
The “boiled frog phenomenon” is often used for the rhetoric that Japan declines without change. Naturally, when the frog is put in boiling water, it runs away by surprise. However, if you put it in room temperature water and gradually raise the water temperature, you will lose the timing of running away, and you will die at the end. This is also an example of explaining the status quo bias in an easy-to-understand manner. Without a change of government, there is a risk of becoming a boiled frog, lagging behind other developed countries as a nation, because it is not possible to engage in a tense politics that will work policy. If you have the opportunity to update your system and stick to a system based on existing technology, you will lose the environment to incorporate the best-in-class technology in the market when you notice it, and you risk becoming a system like a boiled frog that can’t flexibly incorporate new features. In countries where there are many opportunities for talented professionals and managers to change jobs and play an active role in a new workplace, or to start a business and take on challenges, I think that various industries will revitalize and the economy will not become boiled frogs.
However, in reality, the status quo bias is not unique to Japan. As I used The Status Quo Bias, which was used at the beginning, the term itself was explained by scholars of Western behavioral economics. It is said that the current state bias is influenced by the genes of the time when humans were still hunting and living like animals. Going to unexplored lands in that era carries a great risk and a risk of life. That’s why people of that era wanted to be the status quo, and that was the choice and the right choice to live.
We may not follow the principle of economics that “human beings make rational judgments” and do not make rational judgments. Behavioral economics is one of my research themes, such as biases that work on people’s psychology. The consciousness of wanting to avoid loss, that is, the fact that human beings feel more dissatisfied with loss and disadvantage rather than satisfaction with profits. We may also focus on finding value on negative information rather than positive information. In addition, there is a tendency to feel high value in what you own and feel that you do not want to let go of the things you own.
I think it’s close to the current state bias, but sometimes the industry’s leading big companies lose to innovative start-ups. Professor Christensen of Harvard Business School described this with the concept of an “innovation dilemma.” In a word, it refers to a dilemma between strategies such as doing fundamental innovation or going on an extension of existing technologies.
Large companies are making high profits by continuously innovating on existing products, so in the event of a disruptive innovation that has emerged, they fear cannibalism with existing products with high profitability and underestimate disruptive innovations because of their smaller market size than existing products.
Because good companies are loyal to their customers and shareholders, they continue to innovate foolishly and eventually exceed the needs of their customers. In the meantime, however, a blank space was created, and customers began to focus on disruptive innovations that had been less attractive until then, and eventually it became widespread, forcing large companies that stuck to existing products to leave.
There are many companies that have fallen into this innovation dilemma. Blockbuster, an American DVD rental shop, lost without any way to do it before Netflix. Japan’s automotive industry is thriving, but it reveals disruptive innovations that would “destroy” existing gasoline-powered vehicles, such as electric vehicles, by start-ups like Tesla. At that time, if a Japanese automobile company ignores electric vehicles just because they have low profits and cannibalism, they may fall into the dilemma of innovation.
Innovation is also at the edge of digital transformation. Stratus wants to drive digital transformation by creating innovation, not continuing traditional approaches. The roadmap for the next few years embodies that innovation. We would like to make Japanese customers overcome the current status quo bias and be selected as a partner for digital transformation in Japan.
