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This paper analyzes intercultural issues in marriages between Japanese men and women from former Soviet Union countries. Focusing on the differences in meanings and assumptions that guide couples in their marriages and the historical-cultural roots of these differences, the paper argues that spouses adapt, negotiate, and change their expectations to each other in response to the cultural encounters that deviate from their familiar cultural patterns. The data for the research was collected by the author between 2006 and 2014 in urban areas of Japan. It consists in-depth interviews with Russian-speaking women (48) and Japanese men (20), participant observation in couples' homes, women's gatherings, and communication in an online Russian-language community. The analysis reveals the effects of cultural differences on relationships between spouses in international marriages in Japan, discusses the fluidity and change of cultural notions over time, and explains how spouses justify these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an interpretive investigation into the social representation of intercultural exchange at one of the newly established international universities in Japan. The author conducted quasi-structured interviews with 5 staff members and 22 students to gain insight into their perceptions of intercultural exchange and interactions. The findings highlight the dominance of nation-bound and instrumental representations of interculturality, and suggest the importance of integrating intercultural interaction issues into formal curriculums while celebrating intercultural connectivity, interchange and hybridity in both institutional and interpersonal levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces and analyzes a cooperative learning (CL) group survey project implemented in a freshman university English-as-a-foreign-language class focused on intercultural communication and taught at a co-ed university in the Tokyo metropolitan area in the spring semester, 2008. The project consisted of three phases, with students working in heterogeneously formed groups for an entire semester. In Phase 1, the students learned basic discussion and CL skills. In Phase 2, each group conducted a class survey on a group-selected topic in the field of intercultural communication, analyzed the results and presented their findings. Similar procedures were repeated in Phase 3, except that this time students interviewed foreigners outside the university and were required to work on more demanding tasks. At the end of the semester, the students filled out a reflective questionnaire and their responses were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. Interviewing classmates and foreigners helped the students develop confidence in their English ability and broaden their cultural perspectives. In addition, they showed cooperative behavior and analytical ability. English had become a real means of communication. This hands-on experience helped them begin to shift from knowledge consumers to knowledge producers. They also experienced the power of true cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article we integrate findings from interviews and ethnographic case studies to explore issues of culture and identity in Japanese--Dutch work relations in two different contexts: Japanese firms in the Netherlands and Dutch firms in Japan. It is suggested that cultural identities do not carry a pre-given meaning that people passively enact, as is sometimes assumed, but become infused with meaning in organizational actors' interpretations that are embedded in specific social contexts. The research contribution this article makes is twofold. First, it illustrates how, in different organizational settings, cultural differences are enacted differently in people's identity talk, underlining the context-dependent and constructed nature of culture and cultural distance in intercultural encounters. Second, it highlights the particular relevance of a power-sensitive understanding of claims of cultural difference by revealing small, but significant differences in organizational actors' cultural identity talk that are intimately related to the specific power asymmetries within our research participants' organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses cultural issues in business communication across cultures. The concept of 'negotiated' culture is employed, elaborated and applied to empirical data at organizational and individual contextual levels in intercultural encounters. Communication is viewed as a complex, multi-issued, and dynamic process in which global managers exchange meaning. A multi-contextual analysis is used to describe the dynamics and complexity of sense-making processes at the interface of meaning exchange in the collaboration between Danish and Japanese managers. In particular, the concept of 'negotiated' culture is employed to analyse strategic and operational communication between a Danish company and its alliance partner in the Japanese market. A significant amount of research represents a headquarters or western view of communication processes and cultural challenges in strategy implementation. The present study also includes the partner/Japanese view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]