Doing Business in Japan

Among all the countries of the Pacific rim, Japan has always represented a unique case with regard to the Western nations. The empire's rulers kept Japan closed to Westerners until they were forced by Admiral Peary's arrival in the mid-1850s to admit foreigners and begin trading with the West. Even then, foreign travel and immigration were carefully controlled processes, regulated first by Japanese restrictions and later by the American government's attempts to keep down the numbers of Asian immigrants coming into the United States. Japan's involvement with Axis forces during World War II, starting with the attack on Pearl Harbor, made Americans especially wary of the Japanese on their shores; the internment of thousands of Japanese

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, not a professional pursuit of some specialists" (p. xv). Stephen D. Cohen (1991) argues that the differences extend to national character: The United States as a whole maximizes consumption and recreation, pursues instant gratification, extols the spirit of the individual, and adheres to a belief in the glory of the free market. Japan as a whole opts to work, to save, to sublimate the self to the interests of the larger group, to plan and to sacrifice for the long run, and to adhere to an economic system based primarily on enhancing the size and power of entrenched domestic interests (p. 3). These aspects of the Japanese character are vital to creating an effective marketing plan. DeMente (1993) details the American success stories in the Japanese market, noting the common patterns in each story (pp. 4-5). Some of the most important have been in the food and beverage industry, where limited Japanese resources (including limited land for food production) have allowed Westerners to introduce new products, rather than different versions of products already available, or to bring in familiar products in new forms; for instance, 92 percent of the dry soup mix market in Japan is controlled by foreign firms. He emphasizes, "A
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Approximate Word count = 1577
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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