Abstract:

Currently 1.72 million foreign workers are working in Japan, among them one fourth are Chinese employees (Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and welfare, 2021). In 2020 under the pandemic situation, over 60 thousand new Chinese business people entered Japan which recorded the largest working visa holders in the year (Immigration Service Agency of Japan, 2020). Cross cultural understanding of this working force becomes very important.

Very limited research has been conducted in this area. Past researches attempted to understand the differences between Japanese and Chinese business communication through comparative studies. Toyoda (2009) compared the differences in work values between Japanese and Chinese employees. Wang (2017) compared corporate cultures between Japanese and Chinese companies. Nevertheless, Ho (2012) and Kusumoto (2018) pointed out the difficulties Chinese employees encountered in business practice with Japanese people. However, question still remain unclear what are the causes of intercultural conflicts on the Japanese-Chinese jobsite.

The current research focuses on the conflicts between Chinese and Japanese employees on the jobsite. It attempts to understand the contextualized situation in which conflicts occurred and how they were resolved. Qualitative interpretive approach is employed and data is collected through online interviews with four participants. Analysis is conducted based on the concepts of intercultural communication (Piller, 2014), in which culture is seen as construction (Handford, 2020). Research finding reveals that jobsite conflicts were embedded in intercultural stereotypes, and were resolved through employee’s deconstruction and reconstruction of such images in everyday business practice.

References:
[1] Handford, M. (2020). Training ‘international engineers’ in Japan: discourse, Discourse and stereotypes. In Mullany, L. (ed) Communication in professionals and organizations. 24-46. Palgrave McMillan.
[2] Ho, C. (2012). Intercultural communication problems in Hong Kong Japanese companies: an analysis of surveys of Hong Kong employees. Nihongakkan, 15, 66-79.
[3] Immigration Services Agency of Japan. (2020). Statistics on legal migrants. https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00250011&tstat=000001012480&cycle=7&year=20200&month=0&tclass1=000001012481
[4] Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. (2021). Gaikokujin koyou jyoukyou no todokede jyoukyou matome reiwa 2 nen 10 gatsu genzai (report of registered foreign employees at the end of October, 2020). https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_16279.html
[5] Kusumoto, T. (2018). Nihon no shokuba ni okeru chuugokujin juugyouin no nihonjin tono communication mondai [Factors causing communication trouble with Japanese which Chinese employees experience at Japanese workplace]. Tokyo gaikokugo daigaku ryuugakusei nihongo kenkyuu center ron shuu, 44, 35-48.
[6] Piller, I. (2014). Intercultural communication: a critical introduction (Takahashi,K. & Watanabe, Y, Trans.). Sogensha. (Original work published 2011)
[7] Wang, C. (2017). Inspecting cross-culture-communication differences between Chinese and Japanese firms [Doctoral thesis, Sakushin gakuen university graduate school of management.]. https://sakushin-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&item_id=1004&item_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=21

Keywords:

Intercultural communication, Japanese-Chinese jobsite, Conflict.