3) What was the significance of the dolls? What went wrong?

When he arrived in America, Moto brought a gift to his partner Crowell. It is a Kokeshi doll, which was careful picking out by his wife. This object means a lot to him because he spent a lot of time to choose a gift that would suit Crowell. This is a unique cultural gift, which acts as a form of symbolism.

Indeed, in Japanese culture when conducting a business meeting, it is customary to offer a gift to show they want to build a good relationship. More specifically, for Japanese it's a friendly way to start a discussion, get to know the contact, from there, they can establish a relationship of trust before deciding to go ahead with business.

The initiation phase of the negotiation process that the Japanese follow when they doing business is a foreign concept to Crowell.
When Crowell received the gift he did not show his gratitude and was very discourteous from Moto. This no creates relationship between the two protagonists but rather put a cold. Moto expecting a word of thanks and wanted added some precisions on the subject but Crowell reacts very actively by offending Moto. In addition, Crowell said: "They look like Russian dolls. Hey thanks a lot, my daughter will love them”. This response was probably pretty insulting to Moto.

Finally, cultural differences are the cause of controversy. They haven’t found a common ground regarding their views on courtesy.

Crowell represented a very typical American business objective man, who rushes. By its reaction to the gift, we can observe that American doesn’t have the gift culture. Crowell seems uncomfortable and destabilized to the arrival of this gift.
In contrast, Moto had the role of negotiator calm and patient. There is a culture gap with American socialization and the Japanese one, because it is evident that Crowell doesn’t work on the basis of understanding and social trust. Despite the situation, true to its culture, Moto is not very expressive of his displeasure.

In fact, for instance, Moto’s attitude shows the collectivist side of Japanese when in contrast, the attitude of Crowell shows the individualistic side of American. We note that the Japanese have a very strict step to meet regarding the hierarchy. The loyalty and trust are essential to the company.

All those differences show why Moto was affected of the attitude of Crowell and also show what went wrong.

From the moment when Crowell doesn’t know Japanese culture, they can’t find common ground. Similarly, if Moto doesn’t realize that their culture is not necessarily the most respectable, he must take into consideration other different cultures of his own.

4) Why did Crowell’s remarks about Allmack threaten a loss of face from Moto’s perspective?

During the Business meeting between Crowell and Moto, we observed a gap from each side of the collaboration. In fact, Japan and USA are different country where people have there own way of dealing.
According to the text, we learn that Crowell is an arrogant and narcissistic person who don’t pay any attention to his client by talking just about himself and his company “You know me … I had a good feeling about this deal” “Ask anyone we build the biggest end best shopping malls in the country”. Besides, he forget to show attention and respect to Moto by question him on its company or saying any word concerning the present he got from him and the visit card that he saw in the beginning.

In another side, Moto is described as a calm and respectful person who is making effort to create a good relation between them. Most of his reaction from Crowell behaviour are negative and show its annoyance: “Moto pretend that he hadn’t heard. I will help by ignoring him, Moto thought deeply embarrassed”.

This reaction shows that there is no exchange during the meeting, comparing to the relation with Kubuchevsky, we can’t see any trust and confidence between each other. Indeed, Moto is feeling uncomfortable about the situation and Crowell attitude, Crowell don’t pay any attention to his potential client and don’t adapt himself to the Japanese culture. All that facts lead to a gap between the two cultures: Moto is more attach to relation whereas Crowell is more materialist. Crowell id more focus in his own achievements which is making the client threatens on its further perspective.

To conclude, we wanted to make some recommendation about the way of both of them have experienced the collaboration: We found interesting to attach the new strategy on:
- PDI “Power distance”: strong notion in Japanese education system that everybody is born equal and anyone can get ahead and become anything if he works hard enough (HOSTEDE). In that case, Crowell, don’t need to show off on his company and privacy and should be humble to make Moto more confident.
- UAI “Uncertainty avoidance”: manager asks for all the detailed facts and figures before taking any decision, which makes difficult changes in Japan. (HOFSTEDE). To illustrate that, Crowell need to be more documented on its company in order to provide real facts about it and be aware on his client culture to get the adequate attitude to put Moto in the best condition to deal with him.

5) How did Moto feel about Kubushevsky’s behaviour early on? How did their relationship change?

During the beginning, Kubushevsky’s behaviour appeared to be aloof, rude and dismissive to the Japanese client. In fact, Moto felt that the person was disloyal and individual with a low social standing compare to its own culture behave. The first contact was through Crowell in the company meeting when they handshake their hands to each other: Kubushevsky’s one was strong compare to Moto, which is limp without any eye contact. Then, he hooked his thumbs in his belt buckle, interpreted by Moto as a lack of interest (same as if you put your hand in your pocket).

Plus, when Kubushevsky receive Moto’s Business card, he said, “Thanks, never carry those”: this behave made him disappointed according to the importance from Kubushevsky of exchanging card. In another hand, Kubushevsky did not appreciate the present of a KKD pen from Moto because the ritual of giving a gift is more important than the value of it.

When Kubushevsky left the room, Moto asked to Crowell about its origin: people are either labelled as outsiders or insider in company relation. To facilitate this process of connection, he categorize people to be able to identify the right person who belongs to the right group. So categorize Kubushevsky is quite normal for Moto in term of religion and race: Japanese are self-consciously aware of their homogeneity and its tend to categorize other people in such term but for Crowell it has no matter and respond “He is just Kubushevsky”.

After the meeting with Crowell, Kubushevsky drove Moto around the company to introduce him all the necessary business information and relation: He was amiable, polite and flatly refused and offer to go for a drink after work without any interest to get a deeper relationship from Moto: he doesn’t understand subtleties of human relation. During the time of driving to a cement outlet, Moto asked bout the written five years history of suppliers: Kubushevsky answer not to worry about it now and to thrust him, but the situation made Moto uncomfortable: he did not understand what trust he needs to do with anything.

According to the Japanese culture, work is the centre of life and they need to build basis for long-term relationship with customers. In daily life, they use to meet after work and drink together to enhance their relation between each other. Compare to American culture, there are so many differences such as: Family and personal time are a priority for American, they can have relation with other colleague from work but it is not used to them, they relax in another way of Japanese.

To improve and change their relationship in the text, both sides made effort and try to adapt themselves to the other culture: * They went together out for a drink * Moto start to talk about George private life * George told Moto about Crowell and fact that he’s going to leave the company * Both of them mention about their wife and kids life : they felt more confortable and start singing a song together in the car
At the end, they made a step to each other side to improve their relationship and become friends during the deal about the company. Having this special time together and become close, made Moto more confortable and start acting and behave in trust.