The exchange of cards opens almost every first business meeting in Japan, and it follows a pattern. The visitor or the more junior person offers first. The card is held with both hands, turned so the recipient can read it, often resting on the giver's card case. The recipient takes it with both hands, reads it, and during a meeting keeps it on the table, usually laid out in the order people are seated. Writing on someone's card in front of them, or pushing it into a back pocket, comes across as careless.
The ritual has a purpose. A Japanese card tells the other side your company, your department and your title, and so your rank relative to theirs. That decides who talks to whom, which forms of polite language to use, and who should be in the next meeting. The card is treated as an extension of the person, which is why the etiquette matters.
Cards have survived digitisation better than in most markets. Card-scanning and contact-management services are widely used to turn them into shared company databases.
What it means for a foreign employer
- The title on the card is part of the offer. Candidates will think about how the title on their new card reads to clients and former colleagues. A title that looks like a step down in Japanese terms can lose you a candidate who never says why.
- Agree the Japanese title as well as the English one. A regional title translated literally may mean something different, or nothing, on a Japanese card. Settle both before the offer.
- Print cards before day one. A new senior hire who meets clients without cards in the first week starts at a disadvantage.
- Brief visiting executives. Bring plenty of cards, exchange them properly, and give the Japan team's cards the same attention as anyone else's.
Sources
- General business etiquette; widely described in Japanese business manners guides.