US v Japan Cultural Difference

The comment of mcgjcn mentioned a name R. R. Gesteland. I research the name in Google and found some interesting resources on cultural differences (like this, and this). In all the works, Norihiko Shimizu's paper “Today’s Taboos may be gone tomorrow", Tokyo Business, February 1995, p.51. is a very frequently quoted materials in all MBA courses on International Marketing, and Cross-culture business. It was comparasion between Japan and American. I found many of the points also applies to China.

Cultural Difference between Japanese and American Individual
Lifestyles

American A Culture of self-ｅxpression	Japanese A Culture of Self restrain
Clear ｅxpression of Joy and sorrow	Ambiguous of joy and sorrow
Unequivocal ｅxpression of “Yes/No”.	Equivocal ｅxpression of “Yes/No”.
Strong Personality	Weak Personality
Priority of self-interest	Priority of harmony with others

Source: Norihiko Shimizu's paper “Today’s Taboos may be gone tomorrow", Tokyo Business, February 1995, p.51.

Cultural Differences between Japanese and American Business

American Business	Japanese Business
Game concept: Business is a game in pursuit of profits under the rules of laws and contracts	Mutual trust-oriented business: business is based on trusting relationship among people rather than the rules of game
Efficiency-oriented and approximate accuracy simplicity, clarity, and quickness	Highly precision-oriented and perfectionism-high dependency on human awareness
Easy layoffs, dismissals of employees, and selling of businesses	Job security
Low mutual dependence between employers and employees	High mutual dependence between employers and employees
Heavy dependence on machinery and technology, vs. Light dependence on human resources	Heavy dependence on human resources

This comparision answered many of my questions on effeciency v.s. diversity, why the way of doing business is so different cross the two continents.