Greetings From the President

Chairman Junichi

Muramatsu (Professor, Faculty of Business Administration, Okayama University of Science) More than 20 years have elapsed since this society was established in November 1997. Meanwhile, Asia, our research subject, has itself dramatically transfigured, and research interests accompanying the region’s transformations are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and superdisciplinary. In this regard, our society is well-balanced: it encompasses researchers and practitioners in economics, distribution and marketing research, and business administration. Our society has boldly confronted emergent research themes. In such a context, the research results obtained by the society were compiled in July 2018 in the form of trends and outcomes of Asian market economics as an aspect of the society’s 20th-anniversary project.
Our society has steadily taken new strides toward the next decade. When I am appointed president, I will offer the society two themes for the achievement of further progress. First, we must promote internationalization. The society has already actively engaged in exchanges with overseas members, but we must now establish our position as an international academic society, which will require members to become intensively involved with extensive international experiences. The society is meeting this challenge. Second, we must strengthen the foundations of our association. The society encompasses diverse members, but our size is insufficient. We must urgently increase our membership. To do so, we must expand our base and offer young researchers and practitioners the space to discharge more active roles than ever before. However, the internationalization of the society, as I have mentioned before, is expected to be attractive to our young members.
Therefore, the two issues are interrelated, and their achievement will certainly result in the development of academic societies. To that end, we would like to share our wonderful results with all members, assuring more support than ever before.

Summary

This society purposes to conduct historical, theoretical, and empirical research on Asian markets and aims to collaborate with related academic societies and institutions worldwide to contribute to the development of the Asian as well as the global economy and to assist academic advancements.

Foundational Ideas

Asian regions and countries, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, and South Korea have shown remarkable economic development in recent times, and the 21st century has long been labeled the Asian era. This development has resulted from the active promotion of the individual policies of these regions and nations to introduce foreign capital and to actively propagate export-led industrial policies in the current context. In particular, the countries that had adopted closed economic systems under planned economies shifted to the open economic systems and accrued great expansion. Since the 1990s, China has been forced to adopt the policy of introducing foreign capital in the context of self-rehabilitation to execute the Chinese socialist market economy. Such a circumstance has caused the rapid construction and expansion of an international market economy system in Asia. Conversely, it is noteworthy that the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is centered on the expansion of the United States and regional economic zones such as the European Union (EU) are looking eastward. Ultimately, they may be construed as targeting the establishment of a global market economy system. Hence, these regional entities are attempting to intensify their active associations with Asian regions and countries.
Hence, the themes and methods for the study of Asian economies have become more diversified than ever before conceived as the economies of Asian regions and nations advance rapidly. It may be claimed that research methods solely founded on conventional phenomenon analysis no longer suffice. The academic conferences we dare and endeavor to establish will aim at interdisciplinary research that integrates theories and practices of Asian market economies after studying the history and culture of Asian regions and countries as intensively as possible. Many of the regions and countries of Asia were originally multi-social and each comprised distinctive ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultures. Most can boast long histories, followed by an era of negative modernization. Therefore, they do not necessarily share the foundations of economic principles cultivated thus far by the advanced nations and may not be able to immediately apply the strategies of such nations even if they have adopted the market economy system. Therefore, the establishment of a market economy system in Asia poses unique problems that can cause cross-domain conflicts and the process of their resolution will require wisdom, experience, and a lot of time.
In this context, many academic societies have already been instituted in national organizations related to Asia. However, we intend to study the future of Asia: for instance, the trajectories of the economic development and the future growth of the countries that constitute the continent. To this end, researchers of disciplines such as commerce, economics, and business administration who agree with the aforementioned research methods will work together to conduct interdisciplinary studies. For example, we will promote research on a wide range of issues that have emerged in Asia, including social and environmental problems arising from the rapid shifts to the market economy. In undertaking such initiatives, we will take the perspective of developing the international economy in general, rather than merely the Japanese standpoint as we collect wisdom from discrete countries. We hope we can achieve the support and participation of scholars across varied research disciplines.