Having worked at the corporate headquarters of more than one Big Four powersports OEM, I had opportunity to observe the working out of the different cultures--American and Japanese--that was an integral part of doing business day to day. There definitely were struggles and disconnects inherent in the manufacturer-to-distributor relationship, struggles which were of course potentially magnified by the cultural differences. Among these is the well known issue that Japanese disdain directness. That is, they consider getting straight to the point uncouth and offensive, and probably regard Americans in that light as a consequence. I could cite instances in which this resulted in problems that cost the company in revenue as well as reputation.

A rather humorous example of cultural disconnect played out in the technical department in which I worked, wherein one of our guys, who was responsible for the list of tools the manufacturer recommended in its literature, was having difficulty with his contact in Japan over the name of one of the tools. It was a rubber hammer. Technical people in the U.S. tend to avoid the word "hammer" for such a tool in favor of "mallet". But Japan would not accept the term, and the two men argued for some time over the issue. In the end, it was discovered that in Japan, the word "mallet" is reserved for a 12th century instrument having a wood handle and a crude, humongous large wooden head, which was used primarily as a bludgeon during tribal war. It isn't hard to picture what was in the mind of each man and the miscommunication that naturally resulted.