Table of contents
Introduction
The loyalty
The bureaucracy of Japan
Face-saving
The increasing stress

Introduction For discussing about the culture of the Japanese companies, we think that the type of the culture in Japan business is the task type. In Charles Handy’s theory, there are four types of behavioral characteristics: Zeus (power); Apollo (role); Athena (task); Dionysus (personal). We think that the Japanese culture is the task culture. The task culture is job- or project- oriented. Much of the power and influence lies at the connecting points of the organization. The whole emphasis of the task culture is on getting the job done. It is the job of manager to be concerned with the continuous and successful solution to problems. Influence is based on expert power rather than on position. The task culture uses the unifying power of the group to improve efficiency and to link individuals with the objectives of the organization. It is appropriate where flexibility and sensitivity to the external environment is important, and where speed of reactions is important. Groups, project teams or task forces are formed for a specific purpose and can be reformed, abandoned or continued. The organization works quickly, since each group ideally contains all the decision-making powers required. Individuals find in this culture a high degree of control over their, judgment by results and easy working relationships within the group, with mutual respect based upon capacity rather than age or statues. Talent, creativity and fresh approaches to problem solving are what are valued. In this report, there are several aspects we should pay attention to: the loyalty, the bureaucracy, face-saving and the increasing stress. We’ll discuss the Japanese culture from these aspects.

The loyalty In the head of Japanese leaders and managers, the most important character of a good employee is the loyalty for the company. Japanese can’t bear the candidate who has sent several CVs to different companies even the different domain of the companies (for example, the candidate has sent the CVs both to the hi-tech companies and the make-up companies) just with a trying mind. At that situation, they would think that the candidate isn’t loyal and leave a bad expression for the interviewee; as a result they wouldn’t be able to get the position of the company usually. In Japanese business culture, they encourage the employees to work for their company for their whole life. A CV with various working experience isn’t favorable in Japanese interviewers’ mind, only if they can give out some reasonable reasons to persuade the interviews. However, the persuasion isn’t useful actually. In their point of view, the candidate with a less competence but a higher loyalty is much better than the candidate who has a good qualification of the position but show less loyalty to the company. From this case, we can know that, the idea of “the employee turnover cost is much higher than training the existing employees” is greatly carried out in Japanese companies. Exactly, the company who has a low employee turnover could save more fixed cost and leave a good business culture for the new coming on the company. The company is just like a big family for the staff, the managers and leaders enjoy listening what the staff thinks about. All the people make all efforts to help to develop the company quickly and steadily. Japanese leaders don’t like to fire the employees directly; even the employee did not very well in his position. Usually, the manager would try to stop the raise of the salaries of the employee to send a message for him that his performance not satisfies the manager very much and he should work harder in the future. However, in other national company, the managers would probably fire the employee at the moment without any other chances. In their point of, without the staff there exists millions of the candidate who could replace him. The career places are so competitive that we can wait for the development of the staff. Summary speaking, Japan is the first Asian country to get rich and fall in with the European. Without doubt, the Japanese companies is one of the most competitive companies in the world which their specific business culture. In addition, in my point of view, Japanese company set “people oriented” in a high situation in the business culture which help them to meet success easily. In their point of views, the employees is the fortune of the company, a company with a low turnover is a successful company which means that the staff works happily in the company and want to contribute themselves for the development of the company’s development in the future.

Bureaucracy of Japan A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a government or organization who implements the rules, laws, and functions of their institution. A bureaucracy focus on the work efficiency while it ignores the ideal value and ideology of human, which deprives the liberty of human. In Japanese government or organizations, bureaucracy is a kind of common system, as in Japanese culture, people advocate the high working efficiency and bureaucracy is a kind of system which focus on working efficiency. The bureaucracy has several characteristics; the first is that the government and the organizations have the official regulations. In Japanese organizations and government, the power of the management of organization is set up by a system of official regulations which is approved and obeyed by all the members of the organizations. These regulations have very clear definitions and every one should be restricted by them. In order to accomplish the mission of the organizations efficiently, the regulations forbid any personal emotion factors in the tasks. So in many Japanese companies, the staffs are very professional and working hard, no chatting no smiling in the working time. Even a very detail job, they also have a clear standard, like a screw should be twist 4 times. Clear division of labor is another characteristic of the bureaucracy. The responsibilities, permission and tasks of each department of the organizations are clearly defined. The staff of each department carry out their own duties, cooperate, no prevarication and ultra virus. In Japanese companies and government, as the tasks of each staff have been defined clearly, so each staff know clearly about their responsibilities and permission, to a certain extend, clear division of labor helps the organizations run efficiently and reduce the conflicts. The bureaucracy has a clear right layered, in the Japanese companies and government, the right layered of the power of organizations could be a pyramid style. The top of the pyramid has the most powerful right like a CEO in a company of the chairman of the government. The lower level of the pyramid should obey the higher level of the pyramid. Each of level has clear responsibilities and the right. In a Japanese company, it is easy to find that the company has many levels of authority, when the company carry out an action it should obtained the permission of the high level authority. The organizational structure and the system of management of the bureaucracy are set up by the mission of the organization, according to the needs of the organization to divide the organizational power, which provide an efficient cooperated base to the internal of the organization. To certain extend, it helps the organization to reduce the uncertain factors and improve the working efficiency. However, the bureaucracy ignores the personality traits of the members of organization. Hierarchical, each action is chained by the strict regulations, which makes the members of the organizations lose the creativity and motivation and easier to create the bureaucratism. Nowadays, the bureaucratism has become a big problem of Japanese government. Lack of communication can also reduce the efficiency of the organizations.

Face-saving Face-saving is common in Asia culture, especially in Japan. The Japanese pay close attention to it. And Japan is a state of ceremonies, the manners are also very important. The Japanese are accustomed to shaking hands upon greeting, though bowing is traditional and sometimes used as well. If you are bowed to, return the gesture by bowing either to the same depth or lower - the depth of your bow is indicative of the status relationship between you and your counterpart. When negotiating with the Japanese, you’ll find out that they are good at using business cards. In their views, this is an indispensable ritual to exchange the cards. Therefore, before making a conversation with the Japanese, it’s necessary to prepare the business cards. Because during the negotiation, you need to present everyone the business cards and any one can not be omitted. If the Japanese prior to delivery the business card to us, we should take it with both hands. Japanese are care about the face, if you received the business card and put it into the pocket directly instead of looking at it, the Japanese will create a bad impression on you. When doing the negotiation, the Japanese won’t turn down the other side directly. Generally, Japanese will talk in a roundabout way and express vague. In addition, when the other side makes a request, the Japanese will either oppose or agree at once. This will always create an embarrassing situation in both sides. So in order to make business with the Japanese, we should pay attention the some points.
1. When you have the different opinion with the Japanese, do not show it directly. You should express your suggestion in an indirect way. Otherwise, this will be detrimental to the cooperation. To the uncomfortable questions or the ticklish questions, you can commit them to a middle man and let him to deal with the questions.
2. Don’t refuse the Japanese face to face. If you don’t agree to a suggestion, try to use a tactful way to express or you can make some hints to let them know. It must not to use the insulting or threatening language.
3. Don’t raise the embarrassing questions to the Japanese in front of everyone. If you let him feel to lose face, it is unlikely to exist a chance of cooperation.
4. Pay attention to send gifts. In the Japanese society, sending gifts are the most common phenomenon. In Japan’s tax law, it encourages people to spending money in this aspect. Because the custom of gift-giving is ingrained deeply in Japan. The gifts should always be wrapped and are often presented at first business meetings.
5. Make business appointments in advance and be punctual. Consider using the honorific suffix ---- san, when addressing people when introduced: Mr. or Ms. Yamada can be addressed as Yamada-san.
6. Business dress is formal and conservative. Men should wear a suit and women should wear either a dress or a suit.

Increasing stress The most negative point of the culture of Japan is the increasing pressure. According to statistics, sixty percent of employees are often in the state of mental stress, and sixty-five percent of the companies also said, more and more people have mental illness in the company. Japan's mental health institute also thinks that works make more employees suffer from depression which lead the suicide rate goes up. In 2006, Japan has 32000 people committed suicide, many of them feel the works hard in the economic slump times, then choose the end of his own life. The Japanese mental pressure has various reasons. The first important reason is that Japanese put the hard work as a traditional virtue, and they generally consider that bothering others is an impolite behavior. So, when they face pressures, most of them never to let out or pour out, they choose grin and bear it. The pressures cannot be relieved, gradually become piled up in their hearts. The second reason is the attitudes of employees in Japanese company. They work inflexible and mechanical, and they are poor at adapting the different circumstances. Many of them only strictly obey the orders from superior, and take a long time to do the work scrupulously which has the poor actual meaning. This will make them not only increase the workload, but also feel annoyed and upset. In addition, many Japanese believe that mental illness will make them lose face on the work, even if they meet psychological problems, they don’t like go to the hospital for the treatment. Especially in the big cities, office workers afraid of being in derision from the people around, so they dare not consulting professional psychological doctor. This negative point makes some changes on company’s strategies. As we all know, Japan is famous for its high-technology industry, which has a fierce competition all over the world. So, in these technical companies, there are more the pressures. In these years, in order to relieve the pressure and avoid the risk, some famous companies like Canon and Sony start to change their strategies. Now, they no longer take the lead in innovating, but make the detail the best, which can protect the high risk cost in innovation. Now, as soon as the European or American companies develop the new technology, Japanese company will buy it with a huge amount of many immediately, digest and absorb in a very short time, then use the global leading craft to produce the final goods quickly, and its products are better than the Europe and America rivals both in quality and price. But, this situation can only sustain few years; it will cause some continuous disadvantages. For example, 5 years ago, Sony Ericsson was one of the best in the industry of mobile phones; it attracted the people by its appearance (detail). Nowadays, with the innovation of Apple and HTC, Sony cannot provide these high-technological software to the customers, then their situation of mobile phone is being replace by these innovative brands.

Conclusion From all the aspects we have discussed above, we agreed that the loyalty and the face-saving are the good aspects, but the bureaucracy and the increasing stress are the negative aspects. The company needs the loyal employees to keep the pace of the development. We all know the existence of the corporate spying, people may be tempted by the money or the treasure. At that time, the loyalty is very important for the company. On the other hand, the face-saving may be a very traditional aspect inside the Japanese culture. People who have relationships with the Japanese all feels be respected by them and which give them a good impression for the first time, which always leads to the successful relationship. Also, the bureaucracy is also another traditional aspect inside the Japanese culture. Clear division, a clear right layered, the official regulations all exist in the Japanese companies. It is hard to say that all these elements are bad for the company, but obviously, the negative aspects are much bigger than the positive ones. Finally, the increasing stress, which causes the high suicide rate, is very serious problem in Japan. To certain extent, the increasing stress helps people work hard and upgrade the efficiency. But in Japan, the stress is too high and cause many obstacles for people not daring of the challenge, which always means the innovation in the hi-tech areas. So in Japanese culture, we know that the companies are all using the task mode and facing with the high increasing stress. The bureaucracy makes the companies cause some resource wasting. And the loyalty and the face-saving make the company have a good and long-term relationship with its partners.