Semi-globalization of service value co-creation in context-dependent business: “O-motenashi” culture-style service in the traditional Japanese inns of Kaga-ya

Cross-border deployment of business operations provides an opportunity not only for enlarging the market but also for getting new value-creation knowledge. Rather than pursue a uniform across-the-board strategy, semi-globalization focusing on both similarities and local differences is becoming an important theme for local "hidden champion companies” to operate a sustainable service-oriented business. The service-oriented business in such semi-globalization requires realization and refinement of the service process through engineering and management of the facilities / ICT infrastructures and human resource / staff organization, according to transition of service value and degree of context dependency based on the changes of market trend or customer\´s sense of values. The purpose of our research is to establish a comprehensive understanding of the innovation insights through the semi-globalization of service-oriented business of the yet not sufficiently studied context-dependent service industries. The semi-globalization of service business is demonstrated on the case study of the traditional Japanese inns of Kaga-ya, which have strongly high-context service business model based on the "o-motenashi", a typical Japanese high-context treatment culture. From the differences of value co-creation process between Kaga-ya Taipei and the flagship inn in Japan through on-site surveys at the both locations including interviews with the executives, we were able to recognize and get comprehensive understanding of the transition of multi-context service values. The insights from the present research lead to a methodology aiming at advancing context-dependent service-oriented industries.