to the individual. They value the honesty of a deal and those involved in the deal very much.When doing business, many American companies rely on contracts to bind the agreement. The contract is looked at as the tangible goal of most business negotiations. Without a contract or some type of written agreement it is very unlikely the deal will last. It is very unlikely, that if a problem occurs and a third party is needed to solve that problem, that the deal will even be recognized without a contract. This is different to the Japanese way of business. Contracts are foreign to the Japanese way of doing business, and Americans would do well to keep this fact in mind when doing business with the Japanese (Zimmerman, p.91). This dislike of contracts once again relates to the importance that Japanese put into trust and integrity. Many Japanese will not even bother to read a contract before signing it because they don’t attach substantive importance to it (Ibid, p.91). Although this practice is okay to do in Japan it often causes problems in the U.S. and other Western areas. This is also troublesome when someone who does value a contract finds that there may be no punishment in Japan if the contract is broken. This is why it is very important that both parties have a mutual understanding of the contract and what it entails prior to the signing. If this is not done than one of the parties, if not both, have a good chance of being upset by some future happening. This would not only be unfortunate at the time of the occurrence but it could also lead to the two parties ending any type of relationship which could hurt both parties morally and financially.Part of the suspicion that the Japanese have toward contracts derives from the change in their situation over the past thirty years (Ibid. p.93). This suspicion is caused by the Japanese distrust of the foreign partners that they dealt with in the sixties and seventies. During ...
