Intercultural Management Competencies

Introduction:

Intercultural communication competence becomes increasingly important in our globalizing world and affects practitioners in a wide variety of fields such as scientific cooperation, education, health or business management. Particularly in the last mentioned field a lack of knowledge of another culture can lead, at the best, to embarrassing or amusing mistakes in communication. At the worst, such mistakes may confuse or even offend the people we wish to communicate with, making the conclusion of business deals difficult or impossible. It can be concluded that the process of economic globalization forces firms to drop out of functional isolation and interact with international business partners in order to reap the fruits of globalization and secure long-term profits.

The following paper will deal with the analysis of the role of intercultural communication competence in a practical context. This will be done on the basis of an example of a cross-cultural negotiation between Americans and Japanese. Differences between the two cultures will be clearly analyzed and suggestions for an appropriate behavior in a business context will be given.

Fundamental differences between American Culture and Japanese Culture

In the following relevant differences between American and Japanese culture in the business context will be clarified. These differences mainly refer to the terms "Harmony", "Equality" and "Time". In contrast to Americans, the Japanese put their highest social priority on harmony. This is mostly rooted in Japan's geographical and demographical characteristics. The country is an island and therefore isolated. Moreover the country has the densest population per square foot in the world. Finally the population in general can be characterized as comparably homogenous. All these attributes lead to an unavoidable dependence and closeness of people to each other, resulting in a strong focus on the maintenance of harmony. The American country and population has pretty much opposites characteristics. The country is ample and people have private space resulting in a high individualism. People do not necessarily depend on each other and therefore there is no strong focus on harmony.

Another fundamental difference is related to the term "Equality". In Japan hierarchical power is of utmost importance and highly valued. Employees are extremely loyal to their employer and generally stay with their firm for their entire life. This hierarchical power can also be observed in a non-business context. The entire social life is coined by a junior-senior relationship. Young Japanese are normally extremely polite towards the older generation and use a special terminology (highly formal) when speaking to them. In comparison, Americans value equality very much and tend to behave rather informal, even when speaking to a higher ranked person. This focus on equality is rooted in the American history and an important pillar of the constitution. Furthermore the American society has developed from many different cultures and religious beliefs. This is why many people use the term "Melting pot" to describe the extremely heterogeneous cultural landscape in the country. It can be concluded that there is generally less adherence to hierarchy and rank levels may be bypassed in order to get work done more efficiently.

The last difference is related to the term "Time". Americans tend to think in the present and the short-term future, while Japanese put their focus on long-term