Work in Japan & Poland

Differences in work culture between countries can be vast. That is one of the things that Geert Hofstede was trying to capture with his study, where he interviewed 117.000 IBM workers from over 40 countries in the early 1970's.

According to his findings Poland and Japan are the most different when it comes to long-term goal orientation and motivation towards achievement and success. These data are not the most accurate in my opinion, as a lot has changed in both countries over the last 50 years. In 1973 Japan's economy (GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity) was 2.14 times larger than Poland's. In 2026 Poland is already ahead of Japan in that metric (International Monetary Fund, 2026). It is important to note, as when the study was created these two countries were in vastly different positions. Poland was not yet part of NATO and the EU, and remained a satellite state of the USSR. Because of these reasons I personally find another framework a bit more accurate to compare these two cultures. I'm referring to Erin Meyer's culture map, a book published in 2014. It however focuses on a bit different dimensions so I would not treat it a replacement for Hofstede's framework, but rather as an extra source. According to Meyer, the biggest difference between Poland and Japan in communication style and openness to direct negative feedback (Meyer, 2014). Polish in a low-context language and Polish work culture prioritizes clear communication over "reading the room". In my personal work experience working for 3 Polish companies already, I can confirm that one will pretty much always get clear feedback on what they did right and what they did wrong. In Japan I could already notice that people are more hesitant to express negative opinions publicly.

What I found especially interesting is the power distance axis in Hofstede's work, and how, according to him, in large power distance cultures, power comes first and only afterwards are questions of good and evil decided. In small power distance cultures, by contrast, everyone from a regular employee to a CEO is expected to operate under the same set of rules, and power must be granted in a legitimate manner. This made me think of the question: how does a society understand the legitimacy of power? That question reminds me of Nietzsche's broader concern with who has the authority to determine what is good and evil. The German philosopher argued that many of the values we inherit are not necessarily objective or universal in their essence, but are products of particular historical and cultural processes (Nietzsche, 2006). His idea of overcoming inherited values and creating new ones therefore seems, to me, to offer an interesting parallel to Hofstede's question of how societies establish the legitimacy of power. Nietzsche primarily focuses on the individual and the process of self-overcoming and value creation, whereas Hofstede examines these dynamics at the level of societies. This is, of course, a simplification of both thinkers, but I found the connection interesting as a possible bridge between large-scale social structures and individual morality.


International Monetary Fund. (2026). World Economic Outlook database, April 2026 [Data set]. https://data.imf.org/en/Data-Explorer?datasetUrn=IMF.RES:WEO(9.0.0)

Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map: Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs.

Nietzsche, F. (2006). Thus spoke Zarathustra: A book for all and none (A. Del Caro, Ed. & trans.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1883–1885)