Companies Crossing Cultures: A Case Study of Motorola Japan, Ltd.
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Authors
Marinucci, Jeffrey M.
Issue Date
1999
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The idea of studying international relations and business has been a growing
interest of mine for a considerable amount of time. In 1998, I was preparing to study
abroad in France, and I decided that I wanted to do an internship in Japan as well because
I had studied both languages and cultures since high school. Consequently, I began my
long search for a job in Japan, which was not an easy task. I received many rejection
letters, but with a lot of persistence, at the last minute I received an offer to do an
internship in Tokyo at what was then known as Nippon Motorola, Ltd., the Japanese
subsidiary of Motorola, Inc.
I began working in the Japan Specialized Mobile Radio (JSMR) business section
of the Land Mobile Products Division (LMPD) where I worked on two major projects. In
doing the necessary research for these projects, I had the opportunity to work closely with
my two American supervisors and a number of Japanese nationals. It is here where I got
my first glimpse of two distinctive cultures interacting. Through observation and
discussions with coworkers, I began to realize that working overseas (particularly in
Japan) in an American firm was not as easy as it may have seemed. It required more than
just knowing a bit of the language and Japanese business practices. There turned out to
be a number of conflicts whose roots were in cultural differences, though this was not
always apparent. This was when I decided to study this further in my Senior
Individualized Project.
I was fortunate to secure another position in the summer of 1999 at Motorola, and
I once again was intrigued by the impact of cultural differences that I saw in the day-to-
day operations of the company. With these observations and some additional research
into this topic, I present the following project on Companies Crossing Cultures. It is a
personal reflection, a product of my experiences working at Motorola. To better
understand and interpret what I encountered, I have investigated this topic more fully and
included scholarly data to identify more clearly the important aspects of what I observed.
Description
vii, 47 p.
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