Japanese Clients Research Articles

Peningkatan Kompetensi dan Etika Bekerja Melalui Pelatihan Bahasa Jepang di PT Toray International Matsuoka Winner

Work ethics and foreign language skills are essential for the professional, especially in a multinational corporate environment, where people who work have different cultures, languages, and nationalities. That is confirmed by observations at PT Toray International Matsuoka Winner Industries Semarang (PT TIMW). With daily interactions with Japanese clients and college, an understanding of the work ethics of Japanese corporations and proficiency in Japanese is necessary. The participants first studied Japanese corporate work ethics to improve PT TIMW staff's professional skills. Furthermore, ethical knowledge is covered by studying Japanese, which correlates to the office and business activities carried out by PT TIMW. The Japanese class training was attended by related department staff with the highest intensity of interacting with Japanese colleges and clients. Pair conversation activities were carried out to support the simulation of work situations related to production quantities and activities that indicate time. The tricky part was when the participants communicated by using numbers because there were differences in how to count between Indonesian and Japanese. The training showed good results where the participants could answer the mini-tests in each session. Pictures in textbook show an excellent impact in helping participants to imagine concepts and assist conversational activities in Japanese.

Preliminary Evaluation of Translated and Culturally Adapted Internet-Delivered Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: Multicenter, Single-Arm Trial in Japan.

Internet-delivered cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder (iCT-SAD), which is a therapist-guided modular web-based treatment, has shown strong efficacy and acceptability in English-language randomized controlled trials in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. However, it is not yet known whether iCT-SAD can retain its efficacy following linguistic translation and cultural adaptation of treatment contents and implementation in other countries such as Japan. This study aimed to examine the preliminary efficacy and acceptability of the translated and culturally adapted iCT-SAD in Japanese clinical settings. This multicenter, single-arm trial recruited 15 participants with social anxiety disorder. At the time of recruitment, participants were receiving usual psychiatric care but had not shown improvement in their social anxiety and required additional treatment. iCT-SAD was provided in combination with usual psychiatric care for 14 weeks (treatment phase) and for a subsequent 3-month follow-up phase that included up to 3 booster sessions. The primary outcome measure was the self-report version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. The secondary outcome measures examined social anxiety-related psychological processes, taijin kyofusho (the fear of offending others), depression, generalized anxiety, and general functioning. The assessment points for the outcome measures were baseline (week 0), midtreatment (week 8), posttreatment (week 15; primary assessment point), and follow-up (week 26). Acceptability was measured using the dropout rate from the treatment, the level of engagement with the program (the rate of module completion), and participants' feedback about their experience with the iCT-SAD. Evaluation of the outcome measures data showed that iCT-SAD led to significant improvements in social anxiety symptoms during the treatment phase (P<.001; Cohen d=3.66), and these improvements were maintained during the follow-up phase. Similar results were observed for the secondary outcome measures. At the end of the treatment phase, 80% (12/15) of participants demonstrated reliable improvement, and 60% (9/15) of participants demonstrated remission from social anxiety. Moreover, 7% (1/15) of participants dropped out during treatment, and 7% (1/15) of participants declined to undergo the follow-up phase after completing the treatment. No serious adverse events occurred. On average, participants completed 94% of the modules released to them. Participant feedback was positive and highlighted areas of strength in treatment, and it included further suggestions to improve suitability for Japanese settings. Translated and culturally adapted iCT-SAD demonstrated promising initial efficacy and acceptability for Japanese clients with social anxiety disorder. A randomized controlled trial is required to examine this more robustly.

‘Framing’ and ‘packaging’ of foreign skilled workers: diversity of the intermediary actors in the cross-border labour market between Japan and Vietnam

ABSTRACT Intermediaries are indispensable for processing the mobility of international migrants. In the absence of an official migration policy in Japan, this requirement of intermediaries is not an exception. This paper examines the different approaches of Japanese intermediaries towards Japanese client firms and Vietnamese early-career professionals employed in the information technology sector in the cross-border labour market between Japan and Vietnam. Two major results are derived based on data from semi-structured interviews. First, recruitment companies instruct labour users, and recruitment organizations seek to ‘frame’ a job post for migrant workers for a successful visa application. Second, temporary staffing firms ‘package’ multiple Vietnamese workers to provide the necessary labour to clients. This study argues that different types of intermediaries are present in the employment process of early-career foreign skilled labourers and that a temporary staffing firm intervenes the most actively in the employment process of skilled migrants among other intermediaries.

Measurement Development for Japanese Clients' Experiences during Adult Day Care Service Use (The J-AdaCa Tool).

Adult day care (ADC) is among the most common services in the Japanese long-term care context, but information on how such care is offered remains scarce. This study aimed to develop a measurement tool to assess the richness of clients’ experiences regarding their ADC service use. Through a collaboration with ADC administrators and staff, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three ADC clients (in one ADC agency), and a questionnaire survey (17 items about clients’ and their families’ experiences within ADC) was applied to 360 ADC clients (in 11 ADC agencies). Principle component analysis showed four factors regarding experience of ADC use: “Social participation”, “Hygiene and health”, “Exercise and eating habits”, and “Family support”. These positive experiences might be effectively provided if stakeholders refer to clients’ needs during ADC experiences, and their effective provision may relate to better care outcomes.

アクセプタンス&コミットメント・セラピーの実際 : 日本人クライエントへの適用事例(資料)

アクセプタンス&コミットメント・セラピーの実際 : 日本人クライエントへの適用事例(資料)

Assessing Social Anxiety in Japanese and Japanese-Americans in the United States

A Social Anxiety Scale designed to assess culture-specific symptoms in Japanese clients was assessed for face validity data. Taijin-Kyofusho is a culture-bound syndrome specific to Japanese culture in the DSM-5. A Social Anxiety Scale (SAS) was designed by the first author from existing Western social anxiety scales and a Taijin-Kyofusho scale. A demographic form yielded information about culturally- knowledgeable clinician respondents, and a questionnaire was used to get feedback on the SAS. Responses were obtained from 27 mental health professionals who worked clinically with Japanese legal residents in the United States and Japanese Americans, regarding culturally appropriate social anxiety assessment. Participants perceived the SAS as comprehensive and applicable to Japanese residents and Japanese Americans. Regarding Taijin-Kyofusho, most agreed that it should be assessed in Japanese residents but were undecided about its clarity and applicability to Japanese Americans. Several concerns were expressed about the validity of Western social anxiety scales for these populations. Most stressed the need for contextualization of social anxiety scales, differences in stigma against mental disorders across ethnicities, and the need for sensitivity of mental health professions to LGBTQ members in these populations. This is the first study on the views of clinicians working with these populations about Taijin-Kyofusho and how to assess anxiety. Nuances between Japanese residents and Japanese Americans were noted. We urge incorporation of cultural differences in manifestations of distress and specifically on Taijin-Kyofusho in training for mental health professionals. The purpose of this paper is to report on the first step in development of a culturally appropriate social anxiety scale for Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the United States (U.S.). We first review the literature on differences in anxiety presentation across U.S. and Japanese cultures. We then report on feedback from culturally knowledgeable clinicians of the new scale, and specifically on the question of whether Taijin-Kyofusho symptoms should be included.

Amphibious airplane for underwater observation: Conceptual design

This paper aims at presenting the conceptual design of an amphibious airplane for underwater observation in the territory of Japan. Taking into account the specificity of this type of vehicles, particular attention should be paid to the analysis of aerodynamic and dynamic characteristics of aircraft. In order to cope up with this topic, commercial tools have been exploited (such as ANSYS Fluent for wing aerodynamics analysis) as well as the home-built software PANUKL package for aerodynamic analysis of the entire airplane and simulation and dynamic stability analysis for dynamic analysis. Special attention was given to the priorities resulting from understanding the characteristics of the Japanese client.

Typhoid Vaccination among Japanese Travelers to South Asia and the Factors Associated with Compliance.

Objective In 2010, candid advice concerning the low rate of typhoid vaccination among Japanese travelers was received from Nepal. Recently, progressive Japanese travel clinics have encouraged Japanese travelers to be vaccinated against typhoid fever in conjunction with officially approved vaccines, such as hepatitis A vaccine. We herein report the status of typhoid vaccinations for Japanese travelers to the most endemic area (South Asia) and describe the factors associated with compliance. Methods In the travel clinic at Kurume University Hospital, we used the following criteria to retrospectively extract the records of new pre-travel Japanese clients between January 2011 and March 2015: hepatitis A vaccine administered, traveling to South Asian countries, and ≥2 years of age. We first summarized the participants and then divided them into typhoid-vaccinated and typhoid non-vaccinated groups for a comparative analysis. Results This study included 160 clients. A majority (70.0%) of these clients traveled for business. The duration of trips was long (≥1 month) (75.0%), and India was a popular destination (90.6%). A comparative study between the vaccinated group (n=122) and the non-vaccinated group (n=38) revealed that the two factors most positively associated with typhoid vaccination were business trips [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 3.59, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.42-9.06] and coverage by a company/organization payment plan (aOR 7.14, 95% CI 2.67-20.3). Conclusion The trend toward typhoid vaccination among Japanese travelers to South Asia with pre-travel consultation is correlated with business trips and coverage by a company/organization payment plan. If problems concerning the cost of vaccines were resolved, more travelers would request typhoid vaccination.

Corrective emotional experience in an integrative affect-focused therapy: Building a preliminary model using task analysis.

The present study constructed a preliminary process model of corrective emotional experience (CEE) in an integrative affect-focused therapy. Task analysis was used to analyse 6 in-session events taken from 6 Japanese clients who worked with an integrative affect-focused therapist. The 6 events included 3 successful CEEs and 3 partially successful CEEs for comparison. A rational-empirical model of CEE was generated, which consisted of two parallel client change processes, intrapersonal change and interpersonal change, and the therapist interventions corresponding to each process. Therapist experiential interventions and therapist affirmation facilitated both intrapersonal and interpersonal change processes, whereas his relational interventions were associated with the interpersonal change process. The partially successful CEEs were differentiated by the absence of the component of core painful emotions or negative beliefs in intrapersonal change process, which seemed crucial for the interpersonal change process to develop. CEE is best represented by a preliminary model that depicts two parallel yet interacting change processes. Intrapersonal change process is similar to the sequence of change described by the emotional processing model (Pascual-Leone & Greenberg, ), whereas interpersonal change process is a unique contribution of this study. Interpersonal change process was facilitated when the therapist's active stance and use of immediacy responses to make their relational process explicit allowed a shared exploration. Therapist affirmation bridged intrapersonal change to interpersonal change by promoting an adaptive sense of self in clients and forging a deeper emotional connection between the two.

Global supply chains, institutional constraints and firm level adaptations: A comparative study of Chinese service outsourcing firms

The focus on inter-firm governance relations within global supply chains analysis has left social relations at workplaces as a ‘black box’ and relatively underdiscussed. Through an in-depth, comparative study of two Chinese IT service providers for Japanese clients, this article explores how the work and employment relations in the supplier firm are shaped by the institutional contexts of both the supplier firm and the lead firm as well as by the nature of the global supply chain in which they are located. The article shows how the intersection of global supply chains and local institutional environments creates potential gaps between what is required by the lead firms and what is feasible within the supplier firms. Therefore, managers in the supplier firm have to negotiate ways of managing these expectations in the light of their own institutional constraints and possibilities. We identify three forms of adaptation made by the suppliers that we describe as wholesale adaptation, ceremonial adaptation and minimal adaptation to lead firms’ expectations. We argue that these interactions and forms of adaptation can be extended and explored more generally in global supply chains and provide the basis for a fruitful integration of institutional approaches with global supply chain analysis.

Multinational Enterprise-Driven Industrial Agglomerations

1. IntroductionSilicon Valley has been well researched as a representative example of an industrial agglomeration in a high-tech industry (Matsubara, 2006; Rugman & Verbeke, 2003; Saxenian, 1994, 2007; Zhang & Kawabata, 2012). Conventional wisdom states that the flexible business practices that matured in the region allowed individuals and companies to take on challenging opportunities without the fear of failure, and by becoming familiar with these business practices, various players were able to gain necessary resources (Kobayashi, 2013). Moreover, the role of the key enterprises in Silicon Valley that were major players in technological innovations, venture spinoffs (Saxenian, 1994), employment creation (Fukushima, 2013; Matsubara, 2006), and venture acquisitions (Nakagawa, Fukuchi, Kosaka, Akiike, Kobayashi, & Kobayashi, 2014) has been noted as extremely important. However, it is not clear whether the aforementioned business practices can be seen in other high-tech industrial agglomerations with a different history of formation. The objective of this study is to deliberate on the software industrial agglomeration in Dalian, China, where the influence of multinational enterprises is very strong, and to explore its characteristics in comparison with Silicon Valley.According to the Dalian Software & IT Service Industry White Paper (Dairenshi Joho Sangyokyoku & Dairenshi Sofutouea Kyokai, 2012), revenues of Dalian's software industry have continued to grow since the establishment of the city's software park in 1998, from approximately 0.6% of Dalian's GDP in 2001 to approximately 8% in 2011. The software companies number about 1,200, and about 120,000 people work in the industry. In particular, the scale of the Dalian software industry ranks ninth among the major Chinese cities although it is second in terms of software exports. Approximately one-third of the overall software industry revenues in Dalian come from software exports, and Japanese firms account for approximately 70% of that.In 2009, Dalian had 31 universities and colleges, with a total of approximately 290,000 students. Around 70,000 students, or 27%, were studying software (Zhang & Kawabata, 2012). Moreover, nine of these 31 schools offer students facilities to acquire skills in both software and Japanese to provide the industry with the necessary skills. On the basis of the ability to supply such specialized individuals, the number of firms, and the composition of revenues, Dalian has been regarded as a software industrial agglomeration driven by Japan-related businesses (Tajima & Furuya, 2008; Tanzawa, 2014; Zhao, Watanabe, & Griffy-Brown, 2009).2. Interview SamplesSimilar to Kobayashi's (2014) study, this study is based on a survey of two Japanese firms and three Chinese firms located in Dalian (Table 1). Interviews were conducted in August 2013 with one or two people from each company for approximately one hour each. Data for this study was extracted from these interviews, which were held in a quasi-structured format, with questions created along three lines. The first dealt with the local outsourcing environment for local software development; the second with the background of Japanese companies, their businesses in China (or the establishment of Chinese companies), and basic information on their products and systems made locally; and the third covered relationships between the Japanese companies and local firms regarding software development.The Japanese samples included a firm that has been in Dalian's software industry park since its inception (J1) and one that entered the park approximately 10 years after its founding (J3). Considering a more dynamic perspective on relationships with Japanese multinational corporations, the C1, C2, and C3 Chinese samples were all local key enterprises. J1 and C1 were paired as a Japanese client for outsourcing software development and its local supplier and so were J3 and C3. …

The collapse of Japanese companyist regulation and survival of the upstream industry: developing East Asian production linkage

The rise of the global economy has transformed competitive and interdependent relationships in East Asian production linkage. With the development of globalization, Japanese downstream industry, such as manufacturing and especially the consumer electronics industry, is facing fierce competition from the catch-up phenomenon in South Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese manufacturers. Many factories for Japanese consumer electronics firms have been forced to shut down. In addition, their suppliers, upstream Japanese firms like electronic component and equipment suppliers, have lost their business in the domestic Japanese market and have experienced pressure to enter global markets. With regard to the Japanese upstream industry and Taiwanese thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) downstream firms, the Japanese electronic component and equipment suppliers have been integrated into the strategic production linkage in East Asian countries by way of responding to this transformation in competitive relationships in global TFT-LCD markets. Thus, they are increasingly abandoning Japanese clients to become the main electronic component and equipment suppliers for TFT-LCD manufacturers in Taiwan. In spite of the long-term recession in the Japanese economy and decay in the downstream industry, under the Japanese regulatory regime, Japanese upstream industry has thus far maintained its technological advantage in the global TFT-LCD markets and has continued to dominate the electronic component and equipment business for TFT-LCD manufacturers in Taiwan.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for "Taro," a Japanese Client with Chronic Depression: A Replicated Treatment-Evaluation

This single case study examined the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for "Taro," a chronically depressed Japanese man in his thirties. After his baseline functioning was recorded, 9 one-hour weekly sessions, 3 biweekly one-hour booster sessions (bibliotherapy using ACT self-help reading materials), and then 4 monthly follow-up sessions, were conducted. The study examines the outcome of each of the treatment components, which were introduced in a step-by-step manner. In addition, the effects of interventions directed at each core process were also tested. As a result, the effectiveness of ACT was demonstrated with a chronically depressed Japanese client. The effectiveness of interventions was remarkably high during weekly therapy until the booster sessions; in the follow-up stage previous gains were first maintained, but then showed some regression as the client's job situation deteriorated. Future directions include the identification of factors that maintain an increase in the effectiveness of ACT interventions.

How Do IT Outsourcing Vendors Respond to Shocks in Client Demand? A Resource Dependence Perspective

IT outsourcing vendors depend on projects from their clients to reap gains and develop capabilities. Because of this dependence, vendors are vulnerable to shocks in client demand. However, the extant literature on how vendors mitigate the damage from demand shocks is very limited. This multiple case study examined five pairs of relationships between Chinese vendors and their Japanese clients, drawing on resource dependence theory, which considers two response strategies: bridging and buffering. Our findings suggest that both bridging and buffering should be specified further on the basis of their explorative and exploitative dimensions, and that the choice of a particular strategy depended on the power relation between the vendor and client. Results show that when the client was in a highpower advantage, the vendor chose bridging. More specifically, if the vendor also had high power, it adopted explorative bridging; otherwise, it adopted exploitative bridging. When the client was in a low-power position, the vendor would pursue explorative buffering. Exploitative buffering was a common response to demand shocks, independent of the dyadic power relation.

The “Only Choice”

The United States has two faithful allies in Canada and Japan. Established at different points in the twentieth century, the two alliances have grown and flourished, helping to maintain an American-led order in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. By any reasonable measure, few states are as integrated in the American sphere as these two. In David A. Lake's index of US security hierarchy, which measures a variety of bargaining mechanisms through which states voluntarily trade autonomy and sovereignty for order, prosperity, and cheaper provided by the US, Japan ranks fifth and Canada eighth.' From this perspective, it is not surprising that Japan and Canada are participating in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. The US, as the patron state, provides to Canadian and Japanese clients, and in return makes requirements, such as customer loyalty in the area of weapons procurement. For weaker states, the benefits of the alliance come at a price. The logic of this hierarchy is widely understood by Canadian and Japanese pundits, many of whom like to describe the F-35 as the only choice. Even government officials often relate the outcome of their nations' fighter aircraft acquisitions to alliance ties. In this article we compare the F-35 procurement processes in Canada and Japan in order to examine the relationship between procurement and alliance, and therefore the nature of what Lake calls American in the world. Given the secretive nature of ongoing military acquisitions, we cannot directly observe how US political authority might operate in the F-35 case. Instead, we can use parliamentary and media records, as well as our own (unstructured and informal) interview data, to explore a set of ideas distilled from scholarly analyses of previous fighter jet procurements in Canada (New Fighter Aircraft program, 1977-1980) and Japan (FSX competition, I9^5'I9^7)-2 We argue that US influence in Canadian and Japanese defence policy is not a simple function of linkage politics-attempts and counterattempts to improve one's bargaining position on one issue by tying it to an unrelated issue.5 Rather, US influence is indirect and distorted through the ebb and flow of domestic politics. The fact that the politics of the F-35 in both Canada and Japan has been reduced to procedural issues suggests a high degree of elite consensus on the value of buying American-made arms; therefore, while the multiplicity of the so-called channels of contact remains an important determinant of military acquisitions, it is ultimately not as important as the durability of indigenous support for participation in US-centric global architectures.While the two alliances are similarly institutionalized in many dimensions, there are obvious limits to comparability in this particular case. Canada expressed interest in the aircraft as early as 1997, when the F-35 was stiU a concept. By investing millions of dollars early on, Canada won the status of Level 3 international partner in the program, placing Canada right behind Italy and Turkey; however, not until 16 July 2010 did the Conservative government of Stephen Harper announce that Canada would buy 65 F-35S. For reasons we identify below, the proposal generated considerable controversy and remains a contentious topic in Canadian politics.In contrast to Canada, Japan joined the F-35 program as a customer, not a co-developer, the main reason being a self-imposed restriction on joint weapon development with countries other than the US. On 19 December 2011 the government of Japan announced that it had selected Lockheed Martin's stealth design as the winner of a new fighter jet competition. Importantly, in the mid-20oos, Tokyo's expressed preference was for the F-22, the other stealth fighter designed by Lockheed Martin, which the US Congress refuses to sell to any foreign government.4 The Japanese government signed the actual purchase contract of the first four fighters on 29 June 2012, and it is expected that Tokyo will buy 42 F-35 aircraft in total. …

Exploring the Impact of Innovation between japanese KIBS and Clients

Exploring the Impact of Innovation between japanese KIBS and Clients

Japanese Culture and Therapeutic Relationship

Japanese culture is collectivistic by nature, and there are some culturally indigenous patterns which govern forming relationships in Japan. One of the important patterns is hierarchy. Counselling and psychotherapy are based on Western concepts and the Japanese view them differently. When the Japanese provide or use counselling and psychotherapy services, they generally follow Japanese methods of forming relationships, which results in a hierarchical relationship between client and therapist. In this article, after the hierarchical nature of relationship in the Japanese cultural context is introduced, reflections of this pattern of relationship in the author's therapeutic work with Japanese clients are presented. Suggestions as to how this dynamic can be used positively in the therapeutic setting are also made. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol10/iss3/5

The transformation of Rogerian client-centered techniques of psychotherapy in Japan: background and implications

C.R. Rogers's client-centered therapy was welcomed in Japan after World War II as a new democratic way of counseling, and has become a pillar of psychotherapy in the nation. However, upon scrutinizing its development, it has lost the original reflective function, and a relational symbiosis of therapist and client is overemphasized. The author discusses aspects of the Japanese cultural background that are possible causes of these modifications and, in particular, the well-known Japanese mental trait amae, or psychological dependence on others, and certain characteristics of the Japanese language. Referring to the cross-cultural studies in psychotherapy, he suggests that the symbiotic field not only supports Japanese clients, but can also be the core of ‘self’.

Strengthening the Kawa Model: Japanese Perspectives on Person, Occupation, and Environment

The Kawa model emerged to meet a need for occupational therapy models and theories relevant to Japanese clients and since its inception has evolved considerably. To provide an overview of the Kawa model and to contribute to a critique of the model from Japanese perspectives on person, occupation, and environment. The paper notes that the Kawa model does not portray inner self nor does it integrate one's active belonging; the author identifies the challenges of addressing issues related to occupations, and introduces the concept of seken (day-to-day community). The model would be strengthened by presenting inner self and a discrete layer of seken in the environment to effectively articulate belonging. The ways of presenting occupation need to be improved to capture relationships between occupation and belonging, effects of occupations, and positive and negative meanings attributed to an occupation. Exploring relationships between self occupation, life flow, and harmony is warranted.

Knowledge Transfer in Offshore Outsourcing

This paper discusses the knowledge transfer process in offshore outsourcing. The focus is a case study of software offshore outsourcing from Japan to Vietnam. Initial results confirm that willingness to cooperate and good impressions facilitate the knowledge transfer process. In addition, communication barriers, cultural differences, lack of equivalence in individual competence, and lack of common rules slow down the transfer process. The study also identifies the Bridge System Engineer (Bridge SE)-a type of coordinator who mediates and enhances the relationship between Japanese clients and Vietnamese service providers. Employing a Bridge SE is an effective way to fill the communication gap, the cultural gap, and generally improve the business relationship. Bridge SEs use their background of higher education and long-term residence in Japan to give advice to Vietnamese software teams on Japanese cultural characteristics, such as the apology culture and the separation between work and private time. In other situations, Bridge SEs use their IT background and communication skills to verify and adjust communication contents before information is sent from one side to another.