Leveraging competitiveness upon national cultural traits: the management of people in Brazilian companies

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the leveraging of competitiveness upon cultural traits. Since the globalization process has raised a series of challenges for companies around the world, companies have sought to respond mainly through the adoption of management practices proved to be successful elsewhere. However, due to the anchoring of many management practices, especially those of human resources, in the socio-cultural context of a country, the import and/or transfer of management practices between different contexts risk resulting in changes which may be only superficial. There are, however, some exceptions. Some managers have chosen to build their companies' competitiveness through management practices firmly anchored on the cultural traits of their countries, instead of looking for practices from successful companies. This process is obviously not simple because it requires from company leaders first the capacity to re-signify the cultural trait in a different manner, i.e. to perceive it as a source of competitiveness for the company and, second, the competence to build a management practice upon this cultural trait so that it will leverage the competitiveness of the company. In order to illustrate how typical cultural traits from a country may leverage the competitiveness of a company, we present the case of Natura, a Brazilian cosmetics manufacturer, which has constructed much of its competitiveness through the adoption of management practices anchored in some typical Brazilian cultural traits. The analysis of the case demonstrates that this process of developing competitive management practices is feasible, but it must be based upon a solid system of values that the team leader practises or wants practised. Otherwise, it is unlikely that the management practices will stand or that people will be committed to them.

Keywords:

• Organizational culture
• societal culture
• management of people

Notes

1 Caldas and Wood explain that ‘in the Brazilian culture, the expression [for the English to see] reveals the intention of creating an illusionary reality to provoke a certain effect in the eyes of someone we respect or fear, without really changing substantially what lies beneath the surface’ (1998: 517). ‘ For the English to see’ is a literal translation of ‘Para inglês ver’.

2 Natura was chosen as best company of the year by Exame, Brazil's major business magazine (Exame, 1998b). Natura has also been the number one company in the hygiene and cosmetics sector for the years 1997, 1998 and 1999.