INTERCULTURAL TRAINING OF JAPANESE FOR UNITED-STATES JAPANESE INTERORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION

During the mid 1980s I lived and worked in Tokyo, Japan, as an intercultural communication consultant and trainer for Japanese corporations. All contracting corporations wanted to obtain briefings on U.S. communicative style and expressed a need to develop in-house corporate, intercultural programs as a key to facilitating improved Japanese-U.S. interaction. Corporations such as Nippon requested briefings and intensive programs for understanding cultural differences, for overcoming communication barriers, and for breeding hybrid behaviors, all geared toward joint ventures, relocations, subsidiaries, mergers, predeparture training, and expatriate needs. The enclosed Nippon case study is based on a program I developed in May 1985. The program provided a didactic and experiential laboratory for eight Japanese managers requesting intensive training on contrasting Japanese-U.S. negotiating styles. This case study is offered as an example of widespread Japanese corporate investment in intercultural and corporate training, and as a prototype for U.S. corporations to consider in the course of engaging in interorganizational communication with Japanese.