Limitations and Potentials of Intercultural Communication in Unethical Business Conventions: A Theoretical Scrutiny of Intercultural Communication, Business Ethics, Habermasian Discourse Ethics and Foucaultian Aesthetics

A less developed country achieves industrialization in a flying geese pattern, step by step, assisted by technology carriers and characterized by cooperation between industrialized and less developed countries. In Southeast Asia, however, it is frequently argued that Japanese firms and expatriates hide technology from the local people. It is also argued that Japanese expatriates stay for decades, thus denying local staff the opportunity of acquainting themselves with technology. Local staff with higher education prefer a Western-style hierarchy and want to be promoted even before they have learnt how to manufacture. They are interested in typically American paper contracts, job descriptions and manuals. Japanese management, on the contrary, tends to train people from scratch within the firm, mainly through on-the-job training, work experience and learning by mistakes.This section treats the sensitive and controversial issue of nationalities. First of all, it is essential to understand that ownership and management are separate issues. Once a firm is established, management comes first, not ownership. Management requires cooperation between the parent company in Japan and the Thai partner. Management intends to achieve the best for the firm and is not motivated purely by personal promotion. Nevertheless, it is also true that local people feel ambivalent about what they experience as Japanese domination. It is argued that even in the case of minority ownership Japanese expatriates dominate the management of subsidiaries.