Intercultural Management: Analysis of the movie "Fear and Trembling"

Thèmes abordés

Intercultural - Cross Cultural - Management - Japan - Fear and Trembling - Amélie Nothomb - International

Résumé du document

Undoubtedly, the world is currently zooming along the expressway to globalization. Globalization causes exchanges to be quicker, facilitated anywhere at any time. These exchanges concern persons, goods, services and funds. As a result, new dilemmas have risen on the horizon along with new opportunities in international and multi-cultural environments. Working opportunities abroad are increasing and international expansion has become compulsory. Crossing national boundaries to understand better different ways of thinking has become an essential key factor to success. there is no chance of succeeding in a global environment without developing specific skills to be culturally intelligent. But developing such skills is not that simple. Being ready to understand different cultures implies being ready to question one's reactions in a multi-cultural environment. It implies setting new rules for one's personal evolution in an organization.

This report consists in the analysis of cross-cultural interactions in Alain Corneau's movie 'Fear and Trembling' released in 2003, and adapted from Amélie Nothomb's novel. This is the story of Amélie, a Belgian young woman who spent her first six years in Japan and who decides to come back to Japan once she became old enough to work for a large company. Though she idealizes the Japanese culture, she will soon experience cross-cultural issues at work and her life will take a turn for the worse.
This report analyzes the situation and provides answers regarding the way such situations should be handled.

Extraits

[...] But it is also one of the main reasons for failure. A lack of knowledge about the market tackled leads to misunderstanding with business partners and sometimes to a total failure in business relations. As far as expatriation is concerned, a preparation is essential. In order to ensure the success of the process, the expat needs to be prepared to the local culture to be able to understand different issues. Managing cross-cultural skills is therefore an essential tool to be successful in relations with local partners. [...]

[...] Each individual has its place in the organization to ensure the group's success. Individual interests are not highlighted. In order to better understand her new environment and to adapt to it in a successful way, Amélie should have been able to think about cognitive facts rather than emotional ones. Her will to be part of the Japanese culture blinded her and prevented her to develop mindfulness. Dialogue, listening, observation, self questioning are useful tools to raise self awareness in a cross-cultural situation. [...]

[...] From this moment, Amélie is entrusted with more and more ridiculous tasks. But she cannot resign: resigning would mean losing her face and her honor. She therefore decides to stay in the company until the end of her contract (that is to say one year). This movie is actually pretty accurate in illustrating the differences between Japan and European cultures such as Belgium. Japan is indeed a high context culture: each and every word, gesture has a meaning and a huge importance. [...]

[...] In this case, developing cultural intelligence would have enabled Amélie to adapt to the Japanese culture, to be part of the organization and maybe to sign a new contract in the company? Anyway, it would have enabled her to acquire a unique, very useful competence. In order to increase one's performances in cross cultural situations and to be able to extract values from cultural differences between people, a three-step approach can be followed: MAPPING consists in understanding the differences between people: what are their cultural values? [...]

[...] She personaly identifies the scene as an aggression in which M. Omoshi wants to destroy Mrs Fubuki, who remains strong and does not show her emotions. But, humiliated, she goes to the bathroom. Amélie, “nice but stupid”, as she describes herself at this precise moment, follows her to help her. But she did not understand that seeing her crying would make her lose her honor at the highest point. The notion of self-esteem, honor, is essential in Japan. The last not least task attributed to Amélie was cleaning the toilets. [...]