Monday, May 27, 2013

JAPAN BUSINESS ETIQUETTE




 

 
What to Know When You Go. While visiting Japan on business, if you want to impress your boss or coworkers, research their customs, and display the knowledge. Knowing your way around the office or city or even where to find a good restaurant, suggests you took the time to care about your trip. However, being nervous is natural, just know most business professionals are understanding or even inviting of cultures; and some will offer a hand shake instead of a bow, as a sign of understanding to our customs.

 

INTRODUCING YOURSELF BEFORE YOU GO

 

Send an e-mail introducing yourself, if you have not met your Japanese associate, this will help you both feel more comfortable when you meet face to face.

 

 BOWING (OJIGI) COULD BE IMPORTANT 

 

Japan a proper bow is important and can mean different things such as hello, thank you, sorry, excuse me, and many others; I think it resembles our hand in the air with a small head nod. What you need to know about bowing is to:

 

·         Keep your back straight.

·         Put your hands down at the sides.

·         Keep a long deep bow to show more respect.

o   15 degrees for casual

o   30 degrees for informal

o   45 degrees for formal looking at your feet

·         Put your head to the left when a bow comes with a hand shake.

·         Don’t put your hands in your pocket.



 

RESPECT IS HUGE

 

Doing business in Japan also requires researching how to give and receive respect in “normal” business situations. In my blogs to follow, I will inform you about topics to think about before traveling that will help make a good impression by answering the following questions.

 

Presentations: Should they be fast and loud or slow and quiet?

Lunch: are for meetings or socials?

Socializing: Is it ok and where?  

Shoes: Why are they important?

 

 

Work cited

Rogers, G. (2013). Japanese Business Etiquette- A Step-by-Step Guide to Successful Business           Interactions Received from http://goasia.about.com/od/Customs-and-Traditions/a/Japanese-Business-Etiquette.htm


Mishima, S. (2013). How to Bow in Japan Received from       http://gojapan.about.com/cs/etiquetteinjapan/a/bowing.htm

 

 

 

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for this useful information. I now know to bow instead of a handshake. I will have to make sure I study more on the proper way to bow before going over to not insult the Japanese.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very beautiful place but way to proper for me. I would get some serious backlash if I were to ever travel there. Maybe one day I will grow up enough to visit there. Thank you for the information I really enjoyed it.
    Nichole

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wish we bowed more in our culture. I think bowing is a very respectful gueture that, as you indicated, can have variety of meenings. Thank you for the insite.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Business in japan is not so easy because of language if you want to start business in japan then first thing is that you know the language of japan. Thanks..
    For More Info: Business Etiquette Japan

    ReplyDelete