Builds a profile of values for a sample of Japanese managers and their immediate supervisors, to be used by Western managers engaged in business ventures with Japanese counterparts. An exploratory factor analysis utilizes Maccoby’s head and heart traits to reveal the powerful influence of tradition in the form of Confucianism, Amayakasu, Chun‐Tzu, honesty and mental autarky, with secondary factors of professionalism and inflexibility suggesting convergence with Western beliefs. Although supervisory perceptions conformed closely with those of respondents, cross‐cultural comparisons demonstrated that US and Japanese managers espouse diametrically opposing values.