Cross-Cultural Differences - Japanese and German Management Styles from the German Perspective

Günter Rexrodt, approximately 230 public figures from the economy, politics, and other areas participated in this event. A resolution was passed in the course of the event, in which the EU Commission and the German government have been asked to do everything in their power to achieve improved market access conditions and to support deregulation measures in Japan. In view of the high costs and risks, the German economy wants its main focus in business with Japan to be on export, technology cooperation, and business investments in the future. A new approach is not, however, supposed to only comprise of measures of continued cooperation for the support of foreign trade, but also to reinforce the cultural cooperation, the education of qualified employees, the youth – manager exchange, as well as the scientific – technological cooperation. In spite of the various problems in the German –Japanese exchange of goods, everyone agrees that free trade must be maintained. Protectionist tendencies are clearly rejected by both export – dependent countries. The structural imbalance in the balance of trade with Japan must be overcome primarily through more efforts of the German economy in the Japanese market, which is difficult, yet has a promising future. The regular participation in conventions in the country of the trade partner, the increased economic integration and the reinforcement of the capital investments in the host country are a few aspects which give hope of a rapid development of bilateral foreign trade. Positive effects are expected from the initiatives of the chambers of commerce of both countries in the partner country as well as from the economic organizations of Japan and Germany, among others (Japan External Trade Organization = JETRO, Federal Association of German Industry, etc.) Germany is a preferred location for Japanese investments, after Great Britain. The German –Japanese Economic Promotion Agency in Düsseldorf has attributed this to four reasons: Germany as the "economic turntable of Europe", free world trade as a component of the German economic policy, an excellent infrastructure and a competitive supply industry with well – educated qualified employees. In addition, are the [...]

The most striking difference between Japan and China in this regard is that loyalty appears as the central value of Japanese Confucianism. Within the Confucian system of the "five cardinal relations" (wu lun), the Japanese philosophers downgraded the role of filial piety, i.e., the relationship between father and son, and replaced it with the ideal of an unconditional loyalty between subject and sovereign.(Ching/Küng, 1988 ) This special emphasis on loyalty was well described by Fukuyama (1995a): In China there was an ethical sense that one had duties to oneself, that is, personal standards of behavior to which one had to conform that served as the functional equivalent of a Western individual conscience. Loyalty to a lord had to be reconciled to this sense of duty to one‘s principles. Duty to a lord in Japan, by contrast, had a much more unconditional character (p.178). [...]

2.5.1. Japanese Confucianism Japan was exposed to Chinese cultural influence from the 6th century to the end of the Tokugawa period in the 1860s. One of the most important elements of this cultural influence was the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism. When one looks at the cultural roots of the Japanese economic system, Confucianism appears to have been the governing philosophy and the shaper of Japanese management values. The other two traditional religions of Japan, namely Shintoism and Zen Buddhism, played only a secondary role in the cultural foundation of Japanese management. Against the background of many religions and sects in Japan, Confucianism became, as in China, the main philosophical basis of society and business. In the migration from China to Japan, however, Confucian teachings underwent considerable reinterpretation. [...]