HIGH-CONTEXT SERVICE IN THE JAPANESE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

The purpose of this research is to clarify the existence of “high-context service”, based on culture and customs, apart from rational and efficiency-centered manual-type service. The paper details two types of knowledge bases, as well as an investigation into the service providing scenes. Firstly, it presents the concept of “considerate behavior”, which engenders positive feelings in people, whereas the field of psychology introduces a similar notion of “helping behavior,” which concerns people who require help in prosocial studies. With the theories of tacit knowledge and knowledge conversion, the paper indicates an evolutionary model of considerate behaviors that explains how a considerate behavior is gradually accepted among coworkers in the same organization and how it then matures into a generalized service as a homogeneous commodity. Secondly, the paper asserts, by utilizing a modularity theory in economics, that individual attending service forms a pattern of service architecture with three types of modules – considerate behavior, service with considerate behaviors, and service with generalized models. The structure of high-context service observed in Japanese high-level compact-sized ryokans is analyzed with Japanese customs, traditions, or its culture as an integral architecture in which each module is mutually connected in a multiple complex linkage. The paper defines modular-type architecture with one-to-one linked modules as a standardized service