The Seven Keys to Communicating in Japan: An Intercultural Approach

This book provides a practical set of guidelines for people wishing to communicate professionally in Japan, following the model of the similar book by Kelm and Victor on Brazil. Good communication requires more than knowing the language. Haru Yamada, Orlando Kelm, and David Victor, seasoned cross-cultural trainers for businesspeople, provide a guide through Victor's LESCANT model (Language, Environment, Social Organization, Context, Authority, Nonverbal, and Time). Each chapter addresses one of these topics and demonstrates how to evaluate the differences between Japan and North America, presenting examples to help people avoid common communication mistakes. The book is generously peppered with photographs to provide visual examples. The authors complete the book with a case study chapter on a business interaction between Japanese and North Americans (NA). They then gathered comments from various NA professionals working in Japan and Japanese working with US professionals about the interactions in the case, providing helpful observations about the situation.
The book straddles some language and communication topics, international relations, and reaches into the business community, a strong academic program at GU, presenting us with a new opportunity to reach a wider audience.

Haru Yamada is the author of Different Games, Different Rules: Why Americans and Japanese Misunderstand Each Other, is a contributing editor to L'Echo, and consults on various communications issues.

Orlando R. Kelm, PhD, is an associate professor of Hispanic linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches courses in Portuguese and Spanish, focusing mainly on business language and the cultural aspects of international business communication. He also serves as the Director of the UT Portuguese Language Flagship. His research and publications center on the cultural aspects of international business and pedagogical applications of innovative technologies in language learning, focusing mainly on Latin America and Brazil. Together with coauthor David A. Victor, he published the first volume in this series, The Seven Keys To Communicating in Brazil: An Intercultural Approach (Georgetown University Press, 2016). With coauthors David A. Victor and Haru Yamada, he published the second volume in this series, The Seven Keys To Communicating in Japan: An Intercultural Approach (Georgetown University Press, 2017).

David A. Victor, PhD, is a tenured professor of management and international business at Eastern Michigan University, as well as a consultant, author, and editor. He teaches courses on managing world business communication, international management, and international business and offers a series of seminars on doing business in various countries, including Brazil. As a consultant, he has run training programs and coached the leaders of more than 200 companies and organizations, ranging from global 500 companies to governments and nongovernmental organizations. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Global Advances in Business Communication Journal. Among his many publications is the groundbreaking International Business Communication (HarperCollins, 1992), which introduced the LESCANT Model used as the framework for this book.