Commoditization of Lifestyle Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the relationship between mobilities created from individual choices and the market factors driving lifestyle migration. The transnational mobility of elderly Japanese throughout Asia is considered one of the emerging cases of international retirement migration in Asia, an overall relatively new phenomenon. Through examining the sociocultural aspects of lifestyle migration in the case of Japanese international retirement migration to Malaysia, this paper argues that lifestyle migration, as a form of consumption, results in self-realization that has a culturally specific meaning for Japanese retirees. By linking tourism and migration, this paper proposes that the mobilities market serves as a mediator of transnational human mobilities and argues that the commoditization of Japanese international retirement migration reflects on both the socioeconomic and sociocultural aspects of Japan as an aging society. Ethnographic data, alongside media discourse analysis, demonstrates how the expectation of self-realization is mediated through the promotion of Malaysia as a destination country of Japanese international retirement migration and their culturally specific understandings of retirement lifestyle.     

The ambivalent effect of complexity on firm performance: A study of the global service provider industry

Prior literature is ambivalent about whether organizational complexity has positive or negative effects on firm performance. Using rich data on global service providers, we explore this ambivalence by disentangling performance consequences of different types of organizational complexity. We show that complexity arising from the coordination of different services and operations negatively influences profit margins through increased coordination costs, whereas complexity coming from the sophistication of particular services may positively influence margins through informational advantages. We also investigate the moderating effects of process commoditization and client-specific investments. Our findings point to critical performance dilemmas facing global service providers in a highly competitive industry, and they help better differentiate performance effects of complexity at different organizational levels.     

From blind spots to hotspots: How knowledge services clusters develop and attract foreign investment

This paper explores local and global dynamics underlying the development of knowledge services clusters, which we define as new geographic concentrations of technical talent and service providers offering upstream technical and knowledge-intensive business services to regional and global clients. Taking a co-evolutionary perspective on the development of knowledge services clusters in Latin America, based on data from the Offshoring Research Network (ORN), we find that cluster growth results from intersecting trajectories: the emergence of local talent pools and capabilities initially serving local and regional demand; broadening global search for talent and expertise by multinational corporations; and internationalization strategies of service providers competing to serve global clients. Findings suggest that increasing commoditization of knowledge services opens up windows of opportunity for new clusters, but also involves challenges for sustainable growth. Results may stimulate future research on global sourcing and cluster development.