Japanese business culture affects how corporations train employees

Posted by Cindy on September 23, 2009

Reading a book about Japanese etiquette will not suddenly provide you with the tools necessary for a successful business transaction with a Japanese cooperation. Even something so simple as a greeting can permanently mar a business relationship. Leadership skills development must not only include how to be a good leader in the business world of a hometown culture, but the host cultures you will soon be doing transactions and negotiations with.

For example, if you did not exchange a business card with a Japanese business person, it would be most offensive, and similar to not shaking hands in Western companies. It is best to make a hundred or so business cards with you on a trip to Japan to hand out during meetings. Incidentally, business cards in Japan are called “meishi.” No person in Japan will be very forgiving if you should accidentally run out of them either. It is a real stigma to not possess any business cards: it is a silent way of demonstrating in a culture that you might be unemployed.

Bragging knows no bounds in Japanese culture either. What might seem rude in a Western culture and tantamount to arrogance is actually a way of illustrating how great a company it is that you work for. Documentation such as press releases and news clippings will cement the achievements of your cooperation while also showing its influence.

Additionally, as in Western companies, it is very rude to be late, if not more so in Japan. You can presuppose that the Japanese associate you will be working with will have done much research on your company. While this is a given in any company culture, it must be followed even more strictly in not only the Japanese culture but other cultures as well. It makes you appear weak if you are not prepared in every manner possible. There will be no point to organizational development or any other kind of development if you cannot abide by such simple ways of life.

Further, the way people are seated at meetings is a very complicated affair based upon the relationship to your client, who has seniority, how and when people will be arriving, and even the most seemingly insignificant things such as where the door is in the room where you will be meeting. It is vital people learn such customs. The people get their drinks refilled also have rules and regulations. Things the business world in the West might take for granted gets turned on its head in other places. The unspoken rules of a culture can make or break a relationship. No where is this most important than in the business relationship.