Intercultural Management

Strengthening cultural adaptability / training employees to work abroad and following-up /
setting up interships in emerging countries

What are the challenges facing Japanese in
a global environment?

  • People who work overseas cannot communicate well with local employees or customers.
  • Japanese managers working overseas have difficulty managing national staff or have troubled relationships with national staff due to careless conduct.
  • National staff may suddenly resign.
  • Communications between the head office in Japan and overseas operations are poor, which leads to project delays.
  • Foreign employees are recruited in domestic offices, but do not stay long.

People with strong values who can build good relationships within different cultures needed due to overseas expansion and labor shortages in Japan. Foreign language training  ( including English ), and business skills training are carried out for the management of both domestic and international organizations.

Despite all this training, Japanese business people have difficulty building productive relationships with foreign staff and growing the business. Why is that?

 

Skills required for Japanese to succeed in a global business environment

The ability to adapt to different cultures needs enhancement but is often overlooked.

Japanese companies often expect foreign employees to behave based on Japanese values simply because they are employed by a Japanese company. Cultural values have been unconsciously programmed and learned since birth. The behavior you see is only the tip of the iceberg. Understanding this simple fact is important when communicating with people from different cultures.
For example, some people believe technical people can communicate with each other as long as they share the same technical knowledge, which is not always true. In some countries dissatisfaction with Japanese staff caused by the absence of personal communication can lead to a decline in motivation or staff turnover.
Japanese business people working overseas need to understand and adapt to differences in cultural values to prevent such issues from occurring.

See Our Solution

Customer Issues

Enhancing the ability to adapt to different cultures to maximize individual performance.

Ways to enhance the ability to adapt to different cultures

  • Recognizing different cultures and avoiding stereotyping
  • Using Hofstede’s “6-Dimensional Model” to understand different cultures
  • Understanding own cultural tendencies and characteristics
  • Acquiring practical skills to deal with cultural differences

 

Different cultures

This program allows participants to better understand cultural issues using Hofstede’s “6-Dimensional Model” and an on-line diagnostic tool (Culture Compass) as well as real-life role plays.