Cross Cultural Management

Introduction

When we talk about culture, it is the interaction between people from all forms of social backgrounds around the world. When we are travelling from one location to another location of the country, we get to come across the different languages, religions, educational systems and traditional norms and values of the country or sub-continent. It allows individuals to acquire new cultural knowledge, and affective awareness of the people that they meet from a different social network.

The essence of understanding a different culture embodies the learning, sharing, studying of symbolic patterns and the degree as to how accommodating and adaptive we are towards other cultures. We do this by experiencing and immersing ourselves in their set of values, cultural norms, attitudes and the way society influences their behaviour through the socialization process. It is an important issue not only in our daily lives, but as well as in the business world in order to interact cohesively and gain solidarity with people of varying cultures and nationalities. For this assignment, I will be analysing the cultural norm and business culture of Japan in contrast with Singapore, the way culture influences and enhances the many behavioural norms as well as the way of life of the people living in these countries.

Japan’s total population was last recorded at 127.0 million people in 2014, and the majority of the population comprises of mainly Japanese at 98.5% and 1.5% ethnic group (Ref: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/29/national/foreigners-make-up-1-5-of-populace/#.Vk14oNIrKUk). The general population of Singapore as of June 2015 is at 5.54 million with an estimate ethnic composition of 74.3% Chinese, 13.3% Malays, 9.1% Indians and 3.3% others. The population of Japan is scarcely populated around Japan’s vast land area of 377, 944 (sq.km) whereas Singapore is densely populated at 7697 people per sq.km of a total land area of 719.1 (sq.km) which makes it a...