Materialism is a value system in which the possession of things is located in the central position in one’s life. Materialism researchers such as Belk and Richins view materialism as a psychological concept with personal deviations and have shown that the materialistic tendency correlates various behaviors as well as well-being at an individual level. This article focuses on the materialistic attitudes of boys and girls in their early teens, who are in an early stage of their financial socialization, in order to explore the factors influencing their materialistic tendencies. The data analyzed are collected in March 2020 through a web-based questionnaire from 2874 pairs of mothers and their children in 5th to 7th grade. (11-13 years of age) The modified five-item version of Richins’ scale of materialism is applied to OLS estimation as the dependent variable. The independent variables include those related to （1） the socioeconomic status of the family, （2） the mother's awareness and behaviors concerning financial socialization, （3） the parent-child relationship, （4） the child's purchase-related behaviors, （5） the child's gender attitudes, and （6） the child's personality traits （anxiety tendency and self-efficacy）. The models are also estimated separately by gender, with taking into consideration the possible effects of gender relations in children’s financial socialization processes. The regression results suggest that children's materialistic tendencies are （a） influenced not only by factors common to both genders but also by gender-specific factors, （b） less related to family socioeconomic status and parents’ financial socialization behaviors, and （c） relatively more strongly associated with children's own personality factors, which might result from narcissistic dispositions, and gender stereotyping tendencies. The implication of the results is also discussed from a gender perspective in conclusion.

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The purpose of this paper is to apply the segregation model of T. Schelling to the foreign residents in Japan. We constructed agent-based model of four group residents who have Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese nationalities in Tokyo 23 wards. The model includes total population, number of foreign residents, land price information, location of Japanese language schools for foreigners and number of public resident complex for each ward. Each actor moves to the other area when the ratio of residents of other nationalities exceeds the tolerance of the actor and select the area due to the existence of the neighboring Japanese language school, the low official land price, the ratio of residents of the same nationality of the local government and the number of public resident complex. The result of simulation executed from 2012 to 2019 shows that concentration of foreign residents occurs in some wards, but compared to the real figures, the value tended to be too extreme. So, we built elaborated model which include number of vacant houses in the ward, ratio of technical intern trainee of each nationality, and assumption that foreign residents prefer much lower land price. The result of simulation using elaborated model fit better than former model, but discrepancy remains. This analysis is just first step to apply ABM model to foreign residents in Japan so we should add decisive factors for choosing place, assume wide distribution of actor's attributes and tolerance, and secondary movement of foreign residents to make it possible to predict the future population of foreigners.

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The aim of this paper is to compares ideas of freedom and public policy based on capabilities in Thomas Hill Green and Amartya Sen and to clarify Green's position in the history of the capabilities approach. In Green's view, freedom means the possession of the internal capacities (will and reason) necessary to recognize and realize the capabilities that is ideal life. The business of public policy is to maintain the conditions for freedom and removing obstacles to it. From the social reforms advocated by Green, interference with the conditions of peoplés internal capacities is limited, but rather the maintenance of external conditions and the removal of obstacles related to health, physical and living conditions for the actual realization of what is worth. Therefore, it can be said that the prerequisite for human freedom in Green is an external condition or environment that enables the realization of what is worth, and only after these conditions are met can humans be free. In Sen's view, freedom means the opportunity to choose and achieve what one actually wants to achieve from a variety of opportunities to do or be something―capabilities―. By focusing on this, Sen's approach directly focuses on well-being and freedom. Poverty means the lack of the basic capabilities that are minimally necessary to achieve such opportunities and well-being. It is development that provides the basic capabilities necessary to achieve well-being. Public policies are made by the state to achieve development. Its role is to provide people the opportunity to choose their way of life. With the help of such policies, people can become free. In terms of how they view freedom, they both stand on the perspective of positive freedom, which focuses on being able to achieve something. Therefore, they both believe that we are free to realize something with the help of others. However, they differ greatly in the perspective of what is worth and its realization. They also differ greatly in the way they view capabilities. These interpretations are not in conflict with each other. Although there are differences between them, they can be considered as complementary. The perspective of public policy is that both policies are generally consistent with each other in terms of policy ideas. In view of Sen's philosophy, every person must be able to choose any functionings (vector) from a capability for freedom. Or, as a starting point, sufficient provision of basic capabilities is required. In the case of Green, however, freedom goes beyond the minimum human choices, but at least the ability to choose the specific good functionings (vectors) that will enable one's own life toward the life that should be matched to each of them. In this case, it is not necessarily necessary to be able to choose any functions (vector). For example, it is not necessary for an artist who has no interest in being a man of letters to be able to choose the function (vector) of becoming a top man of letters.

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In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, the digitalization process of Chinese enterprises is developing rapidly with the government's policies and changes in the social environment. Among them, China's traditional enterprises are also facing challenges brought by changes in the market environment and consumer awareness, as well as changes in a series of processes from production to sales. In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, traditional enterprises are bound by their inherent advantages, past successes, and product attributes. Their advantages are gradually becoming disadvantages, and the risk of being overtaken or even overturned by new enterprises has increased significantly, so they must accelerate the pace of digital transformation. This study focuses on analyzing how the digital transformation of traditional Chinese enterprises is achieved. By summarizing and analyzing the cases of Beijing Palace Museum and Zhenjiang Hengshun Vinegar Company, We draw the following conclusions. first, the digital transformation of traditional enterprises is not only a digital technology that reshapes the production method (or the way of providing services) of enterprises, but also a way of making the value of the enterprise, the combination of resources, and even the process of changing the entire business model. This process consists of three main elements: the premise, the way, and the goal of digitization. Second, we emphasize that the viewpoint of competitive strategy in the era of the fourth industrial revolution is changing from the winner-take-all paradigm of competition to the collaborative paradigm of cooperation and co-creation of value.

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The application of digital technology to various areas of life and society, or “digitalization,” is progressing at a rapid pace, and is dramatically changing what consumers want and how they want it. The impact of digitalization is not limited to superficial phenomena such as the digitization of information content, the penetration of online shopping, and the expansion of cashless payments. Another benefit of digitalization is that it has made it easier for consumers to participate in the marketplace by enabling them to match and communicate with various trading partners around the world. Furthermore, digitalization has created consumption settings that emphasize use and access rather than possession, and materialism that has been the basis of traditional consumption is being fundamentally shaken. In this paper, we examine the impact of digitalization on consumer culture. First, we review three studies that provide a thought-provoking discussion from different perspectives: extended self (Belk 2013), liquid consumption (Bardhi and Eckhardt 2017), and McDonaldization (Ritzer [1993] 2018; Ritzer and Miles 2019). Second, we situate these previous studies within the consumption process and formulate the impact of digitalization on each stage. Third, based on this model, we propose the issues of (1) a sense of possession, (2) materialism, (3) sustainability, (4) consumer identity, (5) overconsumption, and (6) prosumers as questions that should be addressed in the future research. This formulation and the research questions could contribute to updating the traditional sociological approach to consumption.

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The concept of welfare pluralism proposed in the U.K. was introduced in Japan with the framework of the small government theory. According to the concept of welfare pluralism, non-profit organizations have an important role. However, the self-help activities（self-help groups, self-help organizations and self-help“Kontaktstellen(clearinghouses)”）that belong to the non-profit sector have the extreme risks. That is, on the one hand the self-help activities are not supported by professionals, but on the other hand they are controlled by professionals in case of cooperation. This paper analyzes the development of self-help support by the public medical insurance in Germany and thereby is to clarify the rules that activate the self-help activities. Consequently, that rules have four elements: the support of the entire structures (including advocacy) of self-help, the competition under the solidarity principle, the guarantee of the participation and the response to the exclusion from the institution. The network of self-help from 1970s has contributed greatly to the development of this rule.

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This study found that social capital encourages people's voluntary cooperation and influences their refraining from going out. It reduced work relationships and neighborhoods and kept families together. Social capital may have facilitated the prevention of the spread of infection in Tokyo metropolitan areas.

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