Japanese companies in the Russian Federation: cross-cultural aspects of the Russian-Japanese business interaction identified from surveys

Abstract

The aspects of cross-cultural communication play a key role in matters of interaction between the employees in Asian international companies. It is also important in business relationships between representatives of the Asian and Western (including Russian) business cultures. At the same time, the aspects of such interaction in the business environment of the Russian Federation have their own characteristics and challenges for the Asian side. To analyze this phenomenon, a study was conducted among the senior management of Japanese companies with many years of experience of working and living in the Russian Federation in order to identify the key aspects of cross-cultural interaction in the field of business communication. The study identified five aspects that were mentioned by all respondents: prejudices and stereotypes of Japanese employees, teamwork (individualism vs collectivism), teamwork (work vs personal time, relationship with management, implications of the decision-making process.

Keywords

• japan
• cross-cultural business communication
• human resource management
• japanese-russian business relations
• asian business culture
• aspects of business communication
• in-depth interviews