Cultural Influence in Business Psychology

Cultural Influence in Business Psychology
Name
Institution

Cultural Influence in Business Psychology
To the Vice President of Production,
I am writing this email concerning the transfer of Mr. Jones, a production manager at your company, to Osaka, Japan, form his hometown in Chicago. My aim is to elaborate to you some cultural differences he is likely to experience in the management of the plant employees in Japan, compared to those in the US. I will also provide some recommendations on how to minimize problems related to transitions from one cultural setting to another.
The cultural differences between Japan and the United States that Jones is likely to experience based on the Hofstede’s five dimensions include a different power distance between the two countries. In the US, the most powerful people have more power over the least powerful people than in Japan where power is fairly distributed without a lot of disparity in the social hierarchy. He will, therefore, be forced to tone down his authority a little bit to be at per with the local standards. Another difference is that Japanese are more masculine than the United States hence he will have to assign the more masculine roles to men and the perceived feminine role to women as opposed to the US where role distribution is almost similar for both genders. The Japanese are also a collective society while the US is an individualistic one hence he will have to involve all people in the decisions that may affect them. The Japanese also avoid uncertainty more than Americans and are more long-term and future-oriented, unlike American who tend to put a great amount of importance to their historical past (Btrax, 2018).

The prevailing cultural differences also result in various individual differences likely to be experienced by Mark. The culture that people live in shapes how they perceive and think about the world. Due to his different culture with the Japanese, Mark is most likely to experience its difference. An example of individual differences that exist between Americans and Japanese is that the Japanese are more oriented to a collectivistic view of the society while Americans tend to be Individualistic, caring more about what affects them personally and not the society in general (University of Minnesota, 2018).
Some of the strategies that can be used to enable managers to take up their overseas assignment with minimal transition problems include providing training in cultural competency and taking talent development approaches to selection. Providing cultural competence training provides the leaders with a global mindset enabling them to communicate and integrate easily into a different culture while taking a talent approach enables the selection of individuals most likely to thrive in different cultural settings (Aperian Global, 2016). Another strategy is a continuous investment in the development of future leaders. This creates a team that is ready for the assignments whenever they become necessary.

References
Aperian Global. (2016). Developing Cultural Competency For International Assignments: What We Can Learn From Expatriate Challenges. Retrieved on 17 Oct. 2018, from https://www.aperianglobal.com/cultural-competency-international-assignment-success/Btrax. (2018). 10 Cultural Contrast between US & Japanese Companies. Retrieved on 17 Oct. 2018, from https://blog.btrax.com/10-cultural-contrasts-between-us-and-japanese-companies-a-personal-view/The University of Minnesota. (2018). Individual and Cultural Differences in Person Perception. Retrieved on 17 Oct. 2018, from https://open.lib.umn.edu/socialpsychology/chapter/6-3-individual-and-cultural-differences-in-person-perception/