Preparing Professionally For A Visit

1236 Words5 Pages
Preparing Professionally for a Trip to Japan Visiting another country can be an eye-opening experience, but taking the time to research the culture before visiting can be somewhat eye-opening as well. Many of us do not understand that it is vital for a successful business trip to learn the ideals, traits, principles, and customs of another country’s culture, as they are often at times very different from our own. If a job required me to move to Japan for two years, it would be crucial for me to understand the five key dimensions of culture, which include context, individualism/collectivism, time orientation, power distance, and communication style, and research these dimensions in Japan’s culture in order to increase the odds of the business trip being a successful one. A culture’s context can basically be described as the background or environment, along with surrounding circumstances, in which professional communication takes place, and can be broken down in to two more specific categories known as low-context and high-context. “Low-context cultures tend to be logical, analytical, and action oriented” (Guffey, 2014, p.89). These types of cultures tend to prefer clear and concise information and do not consider looking at non-verbal cues, relationships, or the setting when communicating. High-context cultures are the complete opposite of low-context and focus more on “interpersonal relationships, nonverbal expression, physical setting, and social setting” (Guffey, 2014,
Get Access