A bit stuck

At the moment I am a bit stuck on where to go from here. I am up to the last chapter I have looked at Japan in terms of Hofstede's dimensions not yet in terms on Trompenaars. I am also meant to look at Australia in the same way but am finding it difficult where to start, I guess with multiculturalism. I am a bit worried that I am not really adding any value... I feel with the Intercultural Communications section that could be relevant to engineers. Then with this last chapter I am not sure whether to really research into the cognitive differences between Japanese and Australian engineers as a result of culture and education differences. Or to look more at the superficial layer and provide tips of Australian engineers working in Japan and vice versa. Maybe I can also look into bilateral agreements between the two countries... I will investigate this further.

Japanese culture compared to Australian culture

I have continued my research into Japanese culture, this has actually included reading about their respective historical contexts. Japan really has been quite isolated historically and even today 99% of the population are Japanese, with the other 1% mainly comprised of Koreans and some Chinese. This historical context has actually made Japan quite culturally homogenous. On the contrary Australia is multicultural with a very short colonised history, this is not accounting for Aboriginal culture that has inhabited Australia for thousands of years. It could be argued that the Aboriginal culture in Australia used to culturally homogenous before Western invasion and colonisation took place. I haven't research that far into Australian culture yet. However, the two different historical contexts and culturally contexts will make for a very interesting comparison. I am also taking an engineering slant, focusing on education in the two countries and professional competencies seeing how much emphasis these institutions place on cultural awareness.

Japan has adopted many Western technologies, however, they have also managed to make them Japanese or do things the Japanese way. I am research into potential culture clashes for the Australian engineer when working in Japan and potentially with Japanese engineers. And vice versa for Japanese engineers in Australia.

I am also quite interested in investigating into whether there are any sociocognitive differences between Japanese engineers and Australian engineers. I know in education the Japanese are taught to rote learn whereas in Australia engineers are taught the basic concepts and then need to investigate and come to their own conclusions, the professor may not always be right. Furthermore, status generally ascribed in Japan so the university you go to is essential if you want to get a good and job and get in a good circle of contacts. In Australia status is more based on achievement so you do not have to go to the best university, generally to get a good job you need to show outstanding achievements. These type of cultural differences I believe do impact on the engineer that are produced in the respective countries and will be what I will be trying to prove. That engineers need to be aware that engineers from other countries will not always be the same and taught the same skills. Thus when working in global teams it is important to enhance the skills of each person and with cultural competency skills this will assist the renaissance engineer. Renaissance engineer was coined by Engels 2001, relating to the fact that nowadays an engineer needs to have more than just technical skills they also need to be socially and politically conscious.

Insight into Japanese Culture

I have started working on the sixth and final chapter, which is a comparison of Eastern to Western cultures and in particular Japan to Australia. I am still debating whether to focus on Australia or choose America. There is a lot of literature for America and I also have a bias from Australian culture. Then on the other hand one of the first steps in gaining intercultural competence is to attempt to view your own culture from an external point of view so this could be important that I attempt to do that for Australia. For the moment I am focusing on Japan. I have decided to characterise the Japanese culture in the models that I have presented in the previous chapters, so where Japan fits in on the Hofstede model and identify their dilemmas in the Trompenaars model and how Japan attempts to reconcile these dilemmas. I am also focusing in particular on engineering and will have a special focus of women engineers.

I am getting quite busy with exams so this section will probably take a bit of time. I have three full weeks to work on this project in July so I can afford to work a bit slowly throughout May and make sure that I pass my subjects here!

I still need to work on the intercultural communication chapter by adding a practical exercise at the end that I have yet to decide on.