Why Isn’t Cool Biz Widespread? Game Theory.
A couple years ago, Japan’s Ministry of Enivorment began a campaign to promote Cool Biz dress codes in Japanese offices, in which workers shed neckties and jackets in favor of short sleeved shirts that allowed them to sweat out summer heat instead of consuming energy to air condition themselves. The Cool Biz code has become manditory in many Japanese government offices, but it has yet to become widespread in the private sector. Why? Japan blogger W. David Marx has argued that the situation can be explained using the classic game theory example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma:
We will use a theoretical scoring system to demonstrate the reasoning using in the endeavor – with 0 points being the status quo and positive or negative points being better or worse than the status quo, respectively. Wearing Cool Biz nets the worker 5 points compared to 0 points of the standard expectation to sweat through the muggy heat of the summer in a suit. The propriety factor is more complicated: an asymmetry of uniform causes chaos in the meeting and an asymmetry of power in negotiation. If both workers show up in the same uniform, everything is normal and there are no points scored on either side. However, the worker scores -10 for showing up in Cool Biz if the other worker is in a proper suit. The suited worker, on the hand, gets +10 points due to the improved position in utilizing the disrespect of the other party to his company’s advantage.
How can both workers avoid the potential disaster of encountering a suited worker while he is wearing Cool Biz attire? The answer is simple: always wear suits.
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I still dont get it that why is a rope around my neck and a jacket (suit and tie) is the proper wearing for adults?
Nike,
I agree! I would love to work at nike. DRI F.I.T. I would love to wear that all day.
Why is wearing anything proper adult attire? Your question is really quite silly. The same can be asked of anything. It’s just the defacto standard that has come about over time.
Sorry, but I don’t buy Marx’s formulation. Under his classical game theory formulation, all players are treated as equal in terms of their ability to lead opinion, but this is clearly not the case here. There’s a good reason fashion magazines turn a profit; people regard them as fashion “experts” so are willing to be lead by them.
Now obviously in this case we’re dealing with a set of people (businessmen) who are set in their ways, so it’s no surprise that they’ve resisted change for so long — for all sorts of cultural reasons.
However, as in the case with fashion magazines, not all players in this game are equal, You’ve now got leaders in the civil sector — leaders of society — moving the Overton window, so I think it’s just a matter of time before business accepts the change. And with climate change poised to bring energy efficiency to the forefront, that change will come eventually.
And knowing how fast your average Japanese salaryman responds to fashion trends, Cool Biz should really take off in about forty or fifty years, when much of Tokyo and Osaka are under water from the icecaps having melted, so the issue will be moot anyway.
I’m at the cutting edge. I wear shorts and a gym shirt to work.
Sometimes just socks.
Cool Biz is a desperate attempt of the Japanese government to lower CO2 emissions so that Japan can keep up the promises made in Kyoto Protocal. Japan’s energy efficiency is already best in the world, which means that there is little room for the further reduction of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, 75% of the Japanese archipelago is already covered with forests, which means it’s very difficult to lower CO2 emission by planting trees. It’s ironic that nations whose energy efficiency is lower and destroyed forests more extensively are much easier to reduce CO2 emissions. So, don’t ridicule Cool Biz, especially Americans and Chinese who are not making any effort to lower CO2 emissions.
No one’s ridiculing cool biz, we’re ridiculing the fact that few people are actually following it.
They’d go a long way if they turned up in yukatas, the dress form that has evolved to actually suit the Japanese summer, rather than the collar and tie the Brits need to keep warm in August….
Well, the reason I am not wearing coolbiz is because mr. company president says not to.
Game theory? Points? Isn’t it easier just to say “unless EVERYONE is wearing cool biz, you look like a tool”?
yeah that’s what i was thinking. think of hawaii if you’ve ever been. it’s perfectly normal to wear ‘hawaiian shirts’ with nice pants as normal business attire, because everyone does it, but if you tried that somewhere else you’d look pretty silly.