A Case Study from Automotive Industry

Understanding and developing employee competences are a current and important part of the actions and competitive advantage of multinational corporations in the fast-changing global markets. The relevance of culture for competences and competence development has received little attention in academic research due to the common perception that competences are universal regardless of context. Multinational corporations operate in varied and often quite unfamiliar environments and thus it is important to understand the impact of culture in growing the competences of local personnel. This thesis is an exploration on how culture affects perceptions on competences and competence development in a Japanese cultural context. The theoretical framework of this study is based on the assumption that competences and their development are context dependent. Factors affecting the context are organizational, work as well as social environment. Individuals' ways of thinking and behavior are largely based the values they have adopted from their culture. Thus, national and organizational culture are central influencers on people's perceptions on essential competences and competence development methods. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study on a Japanese subsidiary of a German multinational corporation. The qualitative data comprises of interviews with twelve Japanese managers, employees and German expatriates. In addition, one interviewee was a Chinese employee who has lived in Japan for several years. The interviews were conducted either in person or by email. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Finally, the results were cross-compared between the respondent groups and discussed in relation to the values and characteristics of Japanese culture. The research results demonstrate that the respondents perceived technical knowledge, teamwork, supporting colleagues and communicational skills as essential competences. In the Japanese context, special focus was placed on the ability to understand customer needs and on so called soft skills to survive in a multicultural environment. The opportunity to train on the job, share tacit knowledge and apply learned skills are crucial for competence development. The results indicate that in Japanese work environment, cultural values, such as collectivism, power distance and possibly uncertainty avoidance, seem to have some effect on perceptions on competences and competence development. Nevertheless, there were more similarities than differences in the cross-case comparison. This implicates individuals identifying with their organizational culture and the strong influence of organizational context to personnel behavior and views