A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Murata, Kiyoshi; Arias-Oliva, Mario; Pelegrín-Borondo, Jorge Article Cross-cultural study about cyborg market acceptance: Japan versus Spain European Research on Management and Business Economics (ERMBE) Provided in Cooperation with: European Academy of Management and Business Economics (AEDEM), Vigo (Pontevedra) Suggested Citation: Murata, Kiyoshi; Arias-Oliva, Mario; Pelegrín-Borondo, Jorge (2019) : Cross-cultural study about cyborg market acceptance: Japan versus Spain, European Research on Management and Business Economics (ERMBE), ISSN 2444-8834, Elsevier, Amsterdam, Vol. 25, Iss. 3, pp. 129-137, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2019.07.003 This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/205798 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain c Economics and Business Department, University of La Rioja, Edificio Quintiliano, C/La Cigüe˜na 60, 26006 Logro˜no, La Rioja, Spain a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Cyborg technologies have left science fiction to become an emerging market. Cyborgs are defined as Received 26 March 2019 people who integrate technical elements in their bodies to improve their capacities over innate ones. Received in revised form 2 July 2019 Taking into consideration the human revolution that this technology can provoke, a cultural approach Accepted 19 July 2019 should be considered in any cyborg market strategy. Our research analyses how ethical awareness, inno- Available online 24 August 2019 vativeness perceptions and perceived risk influence the decision to become a cyborg, analysing whether cultures as different as those of Japan and Spain show different results. We focus our study on young Keywords: higher-education students, collecting a sample of 300 surveys in Japan and 286 in Spain. The findings are Cyborg surprising. Ethics is the most influential variable on the intention to use this technology. The different Ethics Innovation cultural aspects concerned with body modification in Japan and Spain constitute a key concern when Technological acceptance implanting cyborg technology. Nevertheless, we did not find statistically significant differences in the acceptance of cyborg technology between these two countries. © 2019 AEDEM. Published by Elsevier Espana,˜ S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction would be considered a cyborg in this category. (iv) People who have a machine implanted inside their bodies for medical reasons Cyborgs are considered a science-fiction technology to many that lets them attain capacities beyond the standard human ones. people. But technological innovations within the cyborg field are For example, a person with a device implanted that not only lets now becoming available in the market. Cyborgs are not a thing of him/her overcome an auditory handicap but to hear a mobile phone the future, they are the next big thing (Hasse, 2017). Cyborgs are directly in their ears without any other tool (e.g. listening to music, defined as people who integrate technical elements in their bodies phone calls, obtain answers to questions asked to their mobile vir- (Warwick, 2014). Based on this cyborg concept, we can identify five tual assistants such as Siri, Cortana or Alexa). These kinds of devices different types of cyborgs (Pelegrín-Borondo, Arias-Oliva, Murata, are called implantables (Heffernan, Vetere, & Chang, 2017). (v) Peo- & Souto-Romero, 2018; Reinares-Lara, Olarte-Pascual, Pelegrín- ple who have a machine implanted inside their bodies without any Borondo, & Pino, 2016): (i) People who have a physical device medical reason that lets them overcome human standard capac- implanted inside their bodies for medical reasons. For example, a ities. For example, people with implanted RFID (radio frequency person who has a screw implanted in the knee would be considered identification) microchips that allow them to open doors or turn on a cyborg in this category. (ii) People who have a physical device machines. These kinds of devices are called insideables (Pelegrín- implanted inside their bodies to improve their capacities beyond Borondo, Reinares-Lara, & Olarte-Pascual, 2017). For our research, their innate human ones. For example, a person with a dental we consider cyborgs as people with implantables or insideables implant made to provide a perfect set of teeth would be considered that enable them to overcome human capacities. a cyborg in this category. (iii) People who have a machine implanted We are living with cyborgs. Kevin Warwick was the first person inside their bodies for medical reasons that lets them attain stan- able to communicate with external devices with an implanted chip dard human capacities. For example, a person with a pacemaker in his body (Edgar, 2014). The Neil Harbisson case is well known: his implanted antenna let him detect more colours than any other human (Donahue, 2017). Other cyborgs are Hugh Herr with his ∗ bionic legs and Oscar Pistorius with his artificial legs, who became Corresponding author. the first amputee athlete to compete in an Olympic Games final E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Murata), [email protected] (M. Arias-Oliva), [email protected] (J. Pelegrín-Borondo). (Pérez Trivino,˜ 2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2019.07.003 2444-8834/© 2019 AEDEM. Published by Elsevier Espana,˜ S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/). 130 K. Murata et al. / European Research on Management and Business Economics 25 (2019) 129–137 Society has accepted non-technological physical implants to to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, in 2017 improve our capacities (such as the seductive enhancements of aes- there were 9318 breast surgeries performed in Japan, a country thetic surgery) and any implant to solve any health or handicap of 128 million inhabitants (ISAPS, 2017). Japanese manga pub- issue (Pelegrín-Borondo, Reinares-Lara, Olarte-Pascual, & Garcia- lished a cyborg story in 1963. Since then, at least from a conceptual Sierra, 2016). The acceptance of implantables and insideables to point of view, young Japanese accept the concept of a superhu- create cyborgs is a key factor for the strategic development of man enhanced by technology (Murata et al., 2017). Technological these products, especially for young people. Several studies have behaviours and facts are key indicators of technology penetration: confirmed that the acceptance of cyborg products by young peo- In 2017 in Japan, 75.5% of individuals were using a computer, 96.2% ple is higher than that of other age segments (Olarte-Pascual, a mobile phone and 84.6% the Internet. Based on these indica- Pelegrín-Borondo, & Reinares-Lara, 2015). Berger (2011) analysed tors, Japanese society is considered to be highly technological (ITU, the acceptance of implanted RFID chips to grant access to places 2019). or activate machines. Findings demonstrated that young people In Spain, the cultural roots are quite different from the Japanese were more likely to use these devices (Urquilla Castaneda, 2018). Confucian ethic, being based on European culture in Christian- Pelegrín-Borondo et al. (2016) demonstrated the existence of a ity (Floristan, 2003). The ethics of Christianity are different from large segment of the population interested in becoming cyborgs; the Confucian system, and the nonexistence of cyborg comics in young people constitute a key sub-set of this segment. Spain means that the concept of cyborgs within society, as it has Although numerous studies have analysed the acceptance of developed in Japan with manga, has not occurred. Spanish cultural cyborg technologies by young people, none have determined attitudes to body modification differ considerably from those in if inter-country cultural differences affect this acceptance. Our Japan. According to the Spanish National Organisation of Trans- research goal was to investigate whether the acceptance of cyborg plants, there were 5261 human organs transplanted in Spain in technology by young people is influenced by cultural differences. 2017, making Spain a world leader in this medical practice (ONT, We analyse two countries with quite different cultural systems: 2019). According to the Spanish Society of Aesthetic and Cosmetic Japan and Spain. To determine similarities and differences between Surgery, it is estimated that 18,000–19,000 women have had breast the countries, we examine three key variables widely used by aca- surgery in Spain (SECPRE, 2014), a country of 46.5 million habitants.