Current events
January 30, 2020 Brexit accentuates cultural differences in Europe
As the UK approaches Brexit day (31st January 2020), I have been looking at articles I wrote over the past 5 years on Brexit and Japanese companies. This one...
November 26, 2018 Was Carlos Ghosn’s real crime failure to “read the air”?
Surely there were other ways that Nissan could have addressed issues with Ghosn rather than calling the cops on him. However, what Nissan did does match a common pattern that...
February 15, 2018 The #MeToo movement and the Japanese workplace
This interview in the Japan Times with a traumatized Japanese salaryman about the impact of #MeToo on his Japanese workplace (and his marriage!) resonated with many of us who...
February 07, 2018 Dealing with the demon Japanese customer
I thought Google Translate's Japanese to English had improved tremendously recently and it turns out this is indeed the case, since they introduced Neural Machine Translation in November 2017....
October 17, 2017 Giving feedback across cultures is not just a language issue for Japanese managers
The norms of the workplace are rooted in our educational systems....
April 17, 2017 Why young Japanese people use “-san” with each other
This fascinating article(JPNS) explains that the younger generation in Japan use the more formal "-san" with each other at work because they no longer see their companies as family....
December 27, 2016 European love of argument vs Japanese ascription
In a year where fierce political argument and debate has raged in the UK and the US, I thought this article I wrote about the cultural differences in attitudes...