Friday, April 29, 2005
Business - the Japanese way
An old friend of mine recently finished his dissertation on the Japanese trade culture (The "Lagged" Internationalization of Japanese Professional Business Service Firms: Experiences from the UK and Singapore, published at Gothenburg University). His case study explores the difficulties that these businesses have faced, as opposed to the Japanese commodity industries, which are flourishing, to say the least.
Now, some things about the Japanese culture fascinates me, and it is the unorthodox way of doing business by chance. Like Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, who resorted to an interesting way (however, not unusual in Japan) to do a business deal - he played rock, paper, scissors with his clients. Daniel Drezner has the story on his blog.
While highly rational (being able to turn down a client just by referring to the selection process) this behavior seems utterly out of place in Europe or the U.S. And still, so much of business transactions are done in much the same manner. It's not necessarily discriminatory. It's just another way of letting chance have its say to ease up often boring decision-making practices. What's next for Japan? Casual Friday?
Now, some things about the Japanese culture fascinates me, and it is the unorthodox way of doing business by chance. Like Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, who resorted to an interesting way (however, not unusual in Japan) to do a business deal - he played rock, paper, scissors with his clients. Daniel Drezner has the story on his blog.
While highly rational (being able to turn down a client just by referring to the selection process) this behavior seems utterly out of place in Europe or the U.S. And still, so much of business transactions are done in much the same manner. It's not necessarily discriminatory. It's just another way of letting chance have its say to ease up often boring decision-making practices. What's next for Japan? Casual Friday?
