THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF business in recent years has highlighted increasingly cultural aspects of business activities. Concepts such as cultural contact and cultural exchange, cultural co-operation and cultural friction, as well as cultural learning, have become more popular. Often culture is seen as a certain kind of barrier or hurdle to be overcome in international activities. Those businesses that are engaged in international business observe that it is difficult, or even impossible, for them to understand, manage and overcome such barriers or hurdles. Perhaps it is even the case that they call anything which is incomprehensible, unmanageable or unconquerable a cultural barrier or hurdle.

Recent examples of businesses trying to enter the Japanese market show that they have often blamed the ‘closeness’ of the Japanese market for their lack of success, usually pointing to the uniqueness of Japanese business culture. Often accused are the Keiretsu system, which allegedly excludes foreign firms, and the Shotengai, that is the shopping street, which allegedly excludes foreign products, as well as more obvious forms of government protectionism. On the other hand, Japanese businessmen in the European market are also facing difficulties which they often find are intimately associated with the cultural nature of European countries. Some Japanese companies are even moving towards the establishment of their own world-wide corporate identities. For example, Canon has adopted the motto ‘a business culture which can be accepted not only by indigenous, but also by world citizens’.

The awareness of cultural differences and, in particular, cultural barriers is not a new phenomenon in business. Businesses that confronted difficulties in foreign markets whilst in the process of the internationalisation of business activities have left an ample record. In the current light of such vociferous criticism from the United States of Japanese business practices and alleged cultural barriers to imports, it is important to focus on the experience of German exporters before 1939. German businesses then, as American ones today, were convinced that there were significant cultural differences which impeded their effective penetration and dominance of the Japanese market.

The following chapter charts the experiences of the most important German exporters to Japan, such as Krupp, Siemens and IG Farben, and shows what the specific cultural context of Japan did indeed do to some German firms experiencing disappointment.