A Comprehensive Approach to Understand Learning Styles across Countries: A Comparison between the Japanese and Thai Employees of Japanese MNCs

In the age of globalization, there is no doubt that the process by which people working in international contexts learn is a critical issue in the area of international management. Among learning theories, the experiential learning theory proposed by Kolb (1984) has greatly contributed to the debates regarding cultural differences in learning styles (see Auyeung & Sands, 1996; Barmeyer, 2004; Holtbrugge & Mohr, 2010; Joy & Kolb, 2009; Yamazaki, 2005; Yamazaki & Kayes, 2007; Yuen & Lee, 1994), expatriate skills and adaptation (Yamazaki, 2010), cross-cultural learning of expatriates (Yamazaki & Kayes, 2004, 2010) and cultural intelligence (Erez et al., 2013). Although many studies of learning style differences across countries and cultures have been conducted, most of them have operated in an academic context. As a result, few studies have concentrated on the business context, and fewer still have focused on MNCs, which are major business players due to globalization. Because learning styles are determined in accordance with a contextual situation (Kolb, 1984), more learning style research needs to be done on international business contexts that include MNCs. In this study, therefore, by focusing on the global workforces of Japanese MNCs, we aim to explore the learning style similarities and differences between Japan and Thailand in a comprehensive manner.