Week 10 Discussion
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Week10Japan.pdf
8/20/2018 Country Comparison - Hofstede Insights
https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/japan/ 1/3
COUNTRY COMPARISON
Select one or several countries in the menu below to see the values for the 6 dimensions.
To compare your personal preferences to the scores of a country get the Culture Compass™ from our store.
WHAT ABOUT JAPAN? To compare your personal preferences to the scores of a country of your choice, get the Culture Compass™ from our store.
If we explore Japanese culture through the lens of the 6-D Model©, we can get a good overview of the deep drivers of Japanese
culture relative to other world cultures.
POWER DISTANCE
This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal – it expresses the attitude of the culture towards
these inequalities amongst us. Power Distance is de�ned as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and
organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.
At an intermediate score of 54, Japan is a borderline hierarchical society. Yes, Japanese are always conscious of their hierarchical
position in any social setting and act accordingly. However, it is not as hierarchical as most of the other Asian cultures. Some
foreigners experience Japan as extremely hierarchical because of their business experience of painstakingly slow decision making
process: all the decisions must be con�rmed by each hierarchical layer and �nally by the top management in Tokyo. Paradoxically, the
exact example of their slow decision making process shows that in Japanese society there is no one top guy who can take decision
like in more hierarchical societies. Another example of not so high Power Distance is that Japan has always been a meritocratic
society. There is a strong notion in the Japanese education system that everybody is born equal and anyone can get ahead and
become anything if he (yes, it is still he) works hard enough.
INDIVIDUALISM
The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has
to do with whether people´s self-image is de�ned in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after
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themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in groups’ that take care of them in exchange for
loyalty.
Japan scores 46 on the Individualism dimension. Certainly Japanese society shows many of the characteristics of a collectivistic
society: such as putting harmony of group above the expression of individual opinions and people have a strong sense of shame for
losing face. However, it is not as collectivistic as most of her Asian neighbours. The most popular explanation for this is that Japanese
society does not have extended family system which forms a base of more collectivistic societies such as China and Korea. Japan has
been a paternalistic society and the family name and asset was inherited from father to the eldest son. The younger siblings had to
leave home and make their own living with their core families. One seemingly paradoxal example is that Japanese are famous for
their loyalty to their companies, while Chinese seem to job hop more easily. However, company loyalty is something, which people
have chosen for themselves, which is an Individualist thing to do. You could say that the Japanese in-group is situational. While in
more collectivistic culture, people are loyal to their inner group by birth, such as their extended family and their local community.
Japanese are experienced as collectivistic by Western standards and experienced as Individualist by Asian standards. They are more
private and reserved than most other Asians.
MASCULINITY
A high score (Masculine) on this dimension indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with
success being de�ned by the winner / best in �eld – a value system that starts in school and continues throughout organisational life.
A low score (Feminine) on the dimension means that the dominant values in society are caring for others and quality of life. A
Feminine society is one where quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable. The fundamental
issue here is what motivates people, wanting to be the best (Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine).
At 95, Japan is one of the most Masculine societies in the world. However, in combination with their mild collectivism, you do not see
assertive and competitive individual behaviors which we often associate with Masculine culture. What you see is a severe competition
between groups. From very young age at kindergartens, children learn to compete on sports day for their groups (traditionally red
team against white team).
In corporate Japan, you see that employees are most motivated when they are �ghting in a winning team against their competitors.
What you also see as an expression of Masculinity in Japan is the drive for excellence and perfection in their material production
(monodukuri) and in material services (hotels and restaurants) and presentation (gift wrapping and food presentation) in every aspect
of life. Notorious Japanese workaholism is another expression of their Masculinity. It is still hard for women to climb up the corporate
ladders in Japan with their Masculine norm of hard and long working hours.
UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE
The dimension Uncertainty Avoidance has to do with the way that a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known:
should we try to control the future or just let it happen? This ambiguity brings with it anxiety and different cultures have learnt to
deal with this anxiety in different ways. The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown
situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these is re�ected in the score on Uncertainty Avoidance.
At 92 Japan is one of the most uncertainty avoiding countries on earth. This is often attributed to the fact that Japan is constantly
threatened by natural disasters from earthquakes, tsunamis (this is a Japanese word used internationally), typhoons to volcano
eruptions. Under these circumstances Japanese learned to prepare themselves for any uncertain situation. This goes not only for the
emergency plan and precautions for sudden natural disasters but also for every other aspects of society. You could say that in Japan
anything you do is prescribed for maximum predictability. From cradle to grave, life is highly ritualized and you have a lot of
ceremonies. For example, there is opening and closing ceremonies of every school year which are conducted almost exactly the same
way everywhere in Japan. At weddings, funerals and other important social events, what people wear and how people should behave
are prescribed in great detail in etiquette books. School teachers and public servants are reluctant to do things without precedence.
In corporate Japan, a lot of time and effort is put into feasibility studies and all the risk factors must be worked out before any project
can start. Managers ask for all the detailed facts and �gures before taking any decision. This high need for Uncertainty Avoidance is
one of the reasons why changes are so dif�cult to realize in Japan.
LONG TERM ORIENTATION
This dimension describes howevery society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the
present and future, and societies prioritise these two existential goals differently. Normative societies. which score low on this
dimension, for example, prefer to maintain time-honoured traditions and norms while viewing societal change with suspicion. Those
with a culture which scores high, on the other hand, take a more pragmatic approach: they encourage thrift and efforts in modern
education as a way to prepare for the future.
At 88 Japan scores as one of the most Long Term Orientation oriented societies. Japanese see their life as a very short moment in a
long history of mankind. From this perspective, some kind of fatalism is not strange to the Japanese. You do your best in your life
time and that is all what you can do. Notion of the one and only almighty God is not familiar to Japanese. People live their lives guided
by virtues and practical good examples. In corporate Japan, you see long term orientation in the constantly high rate of investment in
R[&]D even in economically dif�cult times, higher own capital rate, priority to steady growth of market share rather than to a
quarterly pro�t, and so on. They all serve the durability of the companies. The idea behind it is that the companies are not here to
make money every quarter for the share holders, but to serve the stake holders and society at large for many generations to come
(e.g. Matsuhista).
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INDULGENCE
One challenge that confronts humanity, now and in the past, is the degree to which small children are socialized. Without socialization
we do not become “human”. This dimension is de�ned as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based
on the way they were raised. Relatively weak control is called “Indulgence” and relatively strong control is called “Restraint”. Cultures
can, therefore, be described as Indulgent or Restrained.
Japan, with a low score of 42, is shown to have a culture of Restraint. Societies with a low score in this dimension have a tendency to
cynicism and pessimism. Also, in contrast to Indulgent societies, Restrained societies do not put much emphasis on leisure time and
control the grati�cation of their desires. People with this orientation have the perception that their actions are Restrained by social
norms and feel that indulging themselves is somewhat wrong.
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