Galápagos Syndrome
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is a term of Japanese origin used in business studies to refer to an isolated development branch of a globally available product. The term is used as an analogy to a part of
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
's ''
On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by M ...
''. Darwin encountered in the
Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of sli ...
isolated flora and fauna, which had undergone evolutionary changes independently from the mainland. This phenomenon was a key to the development of
evolutionary theory Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...
. Darwin stated that due to the differences in environment from one island to another, species adapted to make survival more viable in the local environment of each island. Similarly, a development of goods "in relative isolation from the rest of the world because of a focus on the local market" can lead to similarly differing products. The term "Galápagos syndrome" has been used as a
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
outside the field of business jargon. The term "Galápagosization", referring to the process of the isolation of Japanese "Galápagos-thinking", links this process to the Japanese island mentality.


Examples in Japan


Technology


Mobile phones

The term "Galápagos syndrome" was originally coined to refer to Japanese 3G
mobile phones A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...
, which had developed a large number of specialized features that were widely adopted in the Japanese market, but were unsuccessful abroad. While the original usage of the term was to describe highly advanced phones that were incompatible outside of Japanese networks, as the mobile phone industry underwent drastic changes globally, the term was used to emphasize the associated anxiety about how the development of Japanese mobile phones and those in the worldwide economy went along different paths. A derived term is , blending with , used to refer to Japanese
feature phone Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...
s, by contrast with newer
smart phone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
s. Takeshi Natsuno, professor at Tokyo's
Keio University , abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally established as a school for Rangaku, Western studies in 1858 in Edo. It was granted university status in 1920, becomi ...
, explained, "Japan's cellphones are like the endemic species that Darwin encountered on the Galápagos Islands—fantastically evolved and divergent from their mainland cousins." "Japanese phones suffer from 'Galapagos Syndrome'—are too complex to survive abroad."


Cash machines

Across Japan, the majority of the 190,000 ATMs do not accept bank and credit cards that have been issued outside of the country. According to an April 2022 article, only about 20,000 post offices and convenience stores allow retrieving cash using non-Japanese bank cards. The Japanese government has expressed concern about this issue, and as a result the number of ATMs that accept foreign cards is slowly increasing.


Wallet phone

In 2004, the wallet phone was introduced in Japan as a means to allow
mobile payment Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cas ...
alongside numerous other applications. In some ways the wallet phone can be seen as a predecessor of mobile payment tools that were later released on the global market such as
Apple Pay Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. Supported on iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro, Apple Pay digitizes and can replace a credit or debi ...
or
Google Wallet Google Wallet (or simply Wallet) is a digital wallet platform developed by Google. It is available for the Android, Wear OS, and Fitbit OS operating systems, and was announced on May 11, 2022, at the 2022 Google I/O keynote. It began rollin ...
.


Kei cars (軽自動車)

Kei car Kei car is the smallest category of Japanese expressway-legal motor vehicles. The term ''kei'' is a shortening of , (kanji: ), which translates to English as "light vehicle" (). With restricted dimensions and engine specifications, owners ...
s ("light cars") are small four-wheeled vehicles/cars that have an engine of less than 660cc and enjoy preferential treatment in the form of tax advantages and lower insurance costs. Originally the Japanese government encouraged the use of those "light cars". This category of cars features a number of different car types including sport cars, minivans and commercial vehicles. However, Kei cars are not seen as profitable in export markets and therefore are only part of the Japanese domestic automobile market. Despite no significant global success, major Japanese car manufacturers such as Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Daihatsu and Honda still produce models belonging to the Kei car category.


Handling the Japanese Galápagos syndrome

There are many associated issues with the inability to compete on the international export market. In order to revive the parts of the Japanese economy that have suffered from the "Galápagosization", affected businesses had to find the reasons responsible for the development.
The Galápagosization of Japan continues. According to a survey released today, a shocking two-thirds of the country’s white-collar workers said they didn’t want to work abroad ... ever.


Reasons for the issue and associated implications for businesses

Furthermore, this has led a number of Japanese companies to adapt their business strategies. Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of e-commerce company Rakuten, sees the exclusive use of Japanese in workplaces at the centre of the problem. Following his belief that "a language will open your eyes to the 'global', and you will break free from this conventional wisdom of a pure Japan", the co-founder and CEO of Rakuten made English the main language to be spoken in the company. Gerhard Fasol, the only European member of Euro Technology Japan's "Galapagos study group", stated that another reason for the non-success of some innovative Japanese products is Europe's conservative standpoint when it comes to certain standards. In the belief that it will improve international competitiveness Tadashi Yanai, the founder and president of Fast Retailing, has decided to change the way the firm works against classical Japanese business methods. A shift of the production of some textiles out of Japan to
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
was a move to the low-wage-labour market, that aimed to enable them to compete on price in the international textile market. Another factor which
McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company (informally McKinsey or McK) is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinse ...
points out is the need for Japanese companies to adapt to stronger competition when entering global markets. This should be done by accepting to think in "new and unfamiliar ways about organization, marketing, and strategy", whilst the traditional practices that helped the companies to become a big player in the Japanese market shall be discontinued. Despite the fact that companies have started to address the issue, which ''could'' have a link to the total value of exports increasing over the past five years, there are concerns about the future Galápagosization of Japan.


Future threats

With the ageing and shrinking Japanese population, the fact that fewer and fewer students study abroad to acquire a more internationally oriented university education is reason for concerns over the future of the Japanese economy. Furthermore, there is a conception that the younger generation could enhance the Galápagos effect due to a lack of interest in international education and work placements. Kiyoshi Takeuchi, sociology professor at the Sophia university, describes the young generation to have less "ambition and motivation" as a result from the fear that a wrong move could have negative effects.


Usage of the term referring to instances outside Japan


China

* Stephen Ezell and Robert D. Atkinson describe a similar phenomenon pointing out associated threats this could mean for the Chinese economy. The selling of a product in China could become more expensive for foreign producers due to the fact that they now have to incorporate the Chinese technology standards into their firm. In theory, this could be beneficial for domestic producers. However, this could also lead to an isolation of the respective domestic producers due to less international competitiveness. "China has made the development of indigenous technology standards ... a core component of its industrial development strategy. ... But, by using indigenous rather than global technology standards for ICT products, China risks engendering a 'Galapagos Island' effect that isolates Chinese ICT products, technologies, and markets."


Europe

* Mark Leonard describes threats of how, against the predictions he made in 2005 in his book ''Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century'', the political development of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
happened isolated and differently than in any other political system in the world. "Europe might now be facing its own 'Galápagos moment.' ... It may be that Europe’s postmodern order has become so advanced and particular to its environment that it is impossible for others to follow. It evolved in a protective ecosystem, shielded from the more muscular, "modern" world where most people live."


United States

* The United States was slow to adopt the
EMV EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart card, smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for "Europay International, Europay, Mastercard, and Visa Inc., ...
standard for credit and debit cards (as opposed to swiped
magnetic stripe card The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They shar ...
s), which have been widely-adopted elsewhere, with merchants citing the cost of upgrading hardware and other systems to support it. Work to encourage transition began in 2015 following a series of high-profile retail data breaches involving credit card data, as well as increased frustration by travelers who found themselves increasingly inconvenienced when travelling abroad where they have phased out the magnetic stripe or where automated kiosks abroad would not accept non-EMV chipped cards. Payment providers implemented deadlines under which liability for fraud would shift to merchants if they did not begin accepting EMV payments by a specific date. As of April 2016, 70% of U.S. consumers had EMV cards, and around half of merchants were EMV compliant as of December 2016. However, the rollout has faced challenges, including merchants with EMV-compatible hardware that do not support EMV transactions due to a lack of certification or software support, and complaints that chip-based transactions took more time to process than swipe cards. * According to a March 2008 ''
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' article, American-made cars suffered from the Galapagos syndrome, as they evolved separately from those of the global marketplace.


See also

*
Big in Japan (phrase) Big in Japan is an expression that can describe Western culture, Western (especially North American or European) musical groups who achieve success in Japan, but not necessarily in other parts of the world. However, the expression is commonly ...
* Commoditization *
Exceptionalism Exceptionalism is the perception or belief that a species, country, society, institution, movement, individual, or time period is "wiktionary:exceptional, exceptional" (i.e., unusual or extraordinary). The term carries the implication, whether or ...
* In-group favouritism * Invented here * Island gigantism * Not invented here * World famous in New Zealand


References


External links


"Slowing Japan's Galapagos Syndrome"
article from ''
The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...
''.
Japan's Under-used Economic Engine – The Internet?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galapagos Syndrome Business journalism Business terms Economic globalization Economy of Japan Science and technology in Japan Technology neologisms