SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY ON FOREIGNER' S ADAPTATION TO JAPANESE COMPANIES

Research Project

Project/Area Number	04451039
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	社会学(含社会福祉関係)
Research Institution	UNIVERSITY OF SHIZUOKA
Principal Investigator	NISHIDA Hiroko UNIVERSITY OF SHIZUOKA SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS TITLE OF POSITION PROFESSOR, 国際関係学部, 教授 (00218166)
Project Period (FY)	1992 – 1994
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1994)
Budget Amount *help	¥2,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000) Fiscal Year 1994: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000) Fiscal Year 1993: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000) Fiscal Year 1992: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Keywords	INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION / SCHEMA THEORY / CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION / SOJOURNERS / SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH / 社会心理学 / 海外長期滞在者
Research Abstract	It was the purpose of this study to find out difficulties that foreign workers tend to experience when working in Japanese companies in Japan. As a theoretical framework scema thory was employed. (About the application of schema theory to intercultural communication, "Acognitive approach to intercultural communication based on schema theory" was written and submitted to International Journal of Intercultural Relations.) Forthermore, based on scema theory, a cultural scema analysis was developed. (About the cultural schema analysis, "Cultural schema analysis : a cognitive approach to intercultural communication" was written and submitted to the same journal as above.) Based on the theory and the methodology, the following studies were conducted : (1) "How can Japanese and foreigners work together in Japanese companies? " --50 Japanese and 183 foreign workers participated in this study ; (2) "Survey research on Brazilians working in Japanese" --25 Japanese and 43 Brazilians filled out questionnaires ; and (3) "Sruvey research on Chinese working in Japanese comapnies" --14 Japanese and 3 Chinese workers participated. In these studies, communication difficulties between people from different cultures were perceived as arising from different schemas they internalized while they lived in their own cultural environments. Through these three studies, different behavioral rules in Japan, Brazil, and China have been found. The results help enhance our understanding of intercultural communication and its relationship with cultural scemas.